SKAVENSLAYER
SKAVEN'S CLAW
'I would like to forget the long, hard trudge through the
winter woods which followed our encounter with the
children of Ulric. And it pains me to this day to think
of the punishment we meted out to the girl, Magdalena,
but my companion was unrelenting, and no evil we
encountered was ever spared if that could be avoided. In
this case it could not be. With a heavy hearts, we entered
the forest once more and set off northwards.
'At long last we found ourselves in the great Elector
city of Nuln, a place of refinement, sophistication,
wealth and great learning - and a city in which my
family had long had business dealings. At that time, the
Countess Emmanuelle was at the height of her fame,
power and beauty and her city attracted the wealthy, the
aristocratic and the famous like a candle flame attracts
moths. Nuln was one of the most beautiful cities in all
the Empire.
'Of course, our own entry into the life of the city
was made at a level far lower on the social scale. Short
of cash, hungry and weary from our long journey, we
were forced to take employment in what was possibly the
very worst occupation we were to pursue in our long
wanderings. And during that period we encountered a
fiend who was to bedevil our paths for long years to
come.'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
'Stuck in a sewer, hunting goblins. What a life,' Felix Jaeger muttered
with feeling. He cursed all the gods roundly. In his time he had come
to consider himself something of an expert on unprepossessing sur-
roundings but this must surely take the prize. Twenty feet overhead,
the population of the city of Nuln went about its lawful daily busi-
ness. And here he was, in the dark, creeping along narrow walkways
where a single slip could put him over his head in reeking foulness.
His back ached from stooping for hours on end. Truly, in all of his
long association with the Trollslayer, Gotrek Gurnisson, he had
never before plumbed such depths.
'Stop moaning, manling. It's a job, isn't it?' Gotrek said cheer-
fully, paying not the slightest heed to the smell or the narrowness of
the ledge or the closeness of the bubbling broth of excrement the
sewerjacks called 'the stew'.
The Slayer looked right at home in the endless maze of brick-
work and channels. Gotrek's squat muscular form was far better
adapted to the work than Felix's own. The dwarf picked his way
along the ledges as sure-footed as a cat. In the two weeks they had
been part of the sewer watch, Gotrek had become far more adroit at
the job than ten-year veterans of the service. But then he was a
dwarf; his people were reared in the lightless places far beneath the
Old World.
It probably helped that he could see in the dark, Felix thought,
and did not have to depend on the flickering light of the watch-
men's lanterns. That still did not explain how he endured the
stink, though. Felix doubted whether even the dwarfholds
smelled quite so bad. The stench down here was exquisitely vile.
His head swam from the fumes.
The Trollslayer looked peculiar without his usual weapon. Felix
had come to think of the battle-axe as being grafted to his hand.
Now the dwarf had his huge starmetal axe strapped across his back.
There was not enough space to swing it in most areas of the sewer.
Felix had tried to get Gotrek to leave the weapon in the watch
armoury alongside his own magical sword but had failed. Not even.
the prospect of its weight dragging him below the sewage if he fell
in could cause the Slayer to part with his beloved heirloom. So
Gotrek carried a throwing hatchet in his right hand and a huge mil-
itary pick in the other. Felix shuddered when he imagined the latter
being used. It resembled a large hammer with a cruel hooked spike
on one side. Driven by the dwarfs awesome strength he did not
doubt that it could shatter bone and tear through muscle with ease.
Felix tightened his grip on his own short stabbing sword and
wished that he still carried the Templar Aldred's dragon-hilted
mageblade. The prospect of facing goblins in the dark made him
long for the reassurance of using his familiar weapon. Perhaps
Gotrek was right to keep his axe so close.
In the gloom of the lantern light, his fellow sewerjacks were omi-
nous shadowy figures. They wore no uniform save the ubiquitous
scarves wrapped round their heads like Araby turbans, with a long
fold obscuring their mouths. Over the last two weeks, though, Felix
had become familiar enough with them to recognise their silhou-
ettes.
There was tall, spare Gant whose scarf concealed a face turned
into a moonscape by pockmarks and whose neck was a volcanic
archipelago of erupting boils. If ever there was a good advertisement
for not staying a sewerjack for twenty years Gant was it. The thought
of his toothless smile, bad breath and worse jokes made Felix want
to cringe. Not that he had ever pointed this out to Gant's face. The
sergeant had hinted that he had killed many a man for it.
There was the squat, ape-like giant Rudi, with his massive barrel
chest and hands almost as big as Gotrek's. He and the Trollslayer
often arm-wrestled in the tavern after work. Despite straining until
the sweat ran down his bald pate, Rudi had never beaten the dwarf,
although he had come closer than any man Felix had ever seen.
Then there were Hef and Spider, the new boys as Gant liked to call
them, because they had only been with the sewer watch for seven
years. They were identical twins who lived with the same woman on
the surface and who had the habit of finishing each other's sen-
tences. So strange were their long, lantern-jawed faces and their
fish-like staring eyes, that Felix suspected that in-breeding or muta-
tion was part of their heritage. He did not doubt their deadliness in
hand-to-hand combat, though, or their dedication to each other and
their girl, Gilda. He had seen them do terrible things with their long
hook-bladed knives to a pimp who had insulted her one night.
Along with the burly, one-eyed dwarf, these were the men he
worked with, as desperate a crew as he had ever known. They were
vicious men who couldn't find work that suited them anywhere else
and who had finally found an employer who asked no questions.
There were times when Felix felt like going along to the office of
his father's company and begging for money so he could leave this
place. He knew they would give it to him. He was still the son of
Gustav Jaeger, one of the Empire's wealthiest merchants. But he also
knew that word of his capitulation would get back to his family.
They would know that he had come crawling back to them, after all
his fine boasts. They would know he had taken the money he had
affected to so despise. Of course, it had been easy to despise money
on the day he had stormed from their house, because he had never
known the lack of it. His father's threat to disown him was mean-
ingless because he simply had not understood it. He had grown up
rich. The poor were a different species: sad, sickly things that begged
on street corners and obstructed the path of one's coach. He had
learned since that day. He had endured hardship and he thought he
could take it.
But this was very nearly the last straw: being forced to become a
sewerjack, the lowest of the low amongst the hired bravoes of Nuln.
But there had simply been nothing else for it. Since their arrival no
one else would hire two such down-at-heel rogues as himself and
Gotrek. It pained Felix to think of how he must have looked, seek-
ing work in his tattered britches and patched cloak. He had always
been such a fine dresser.
Now they needed the money, any money. Their long trek through
the land of the Border Princes had yielded no reward. They had
found the lost treasure of Karak Eight Peaks but they had left it to the
ghosts of its owners. It had been a case of find work, steal or starve -
and both he and the Trollslayer were too proud to steal or beg. So
here they were in the sewers below the Empire's second greatest city,
crawling beneath a seat of learning that Felix had once dreamed of
attending, haunting slimy tunnels below the home of the Elector
Countess Emmanuelle, the most famous beauty of the nation.
It was not to be borne. Felix wondered constantly what ill-
omened star had marked his birth. He consoled himself with the
thought that at least things were quiet. It might be dirty work but so
far it had not proved dangerous.
Tracks!' he heard Gant shout. 'Ha! Ha! We've found some of the
little buggers. Prepare for action, lads.'
'Good,' Gotrek rumbled.
'Damn!' Felix muttered. Even as inexperienced a sewerjack as
Felix could spot these tracks.
'Skaven,' Gotrek hawked and spat a huge gob of phlegm out into
the main channel of the sewer. It glistened atop a patch of phos-
phorescent algae. 'Rat-men, spawn of Chaos.'
Felix cursed. On the job only two weeks and already he was
about to meet some of the creatures of the depths. He had almost
been able to dismiss Gant's stories as simply the imaginings of a
man who had nothing better with which to fill his long tedious
hours.
Felix had long wondered if there really could be a whole
demented subworld beneath the city as Gant had hinted. Were there
colonies of outcast mutants who sought refuge in the warm dark-
ness and crept out at night to raid the market for scraps? Could
there actually be cellars where forbidden cults held ghastly rituals
and offered up human sacrifices to the Ruinous Powers?
Was it possible that immense rats which mocked the form of
man really scuttled through the depths? Looking at those tracks it
suddenly seemed all too possible.
Felix stood frozen in thought, remembering Gotrek's tales of the
skaven and their continent-spanning webwork of tunnels. Gant
tugged his sleeve.
'Well, let's get on with it,' the sergeant said. 'We ain't got all day.'
'Never been here before,' Hef whispered, his voice echoing away
down the long stretch of corridor.
'Never want to come here again,' Spider added, rubbing the blue
arachnid tattoo on his cheek. For once Felix was forced to agree with
them. Even by the standards of Nuln sewers, this was a dismal place.
The walls had a crumbled, rotten look to them. The little gargoyles
on the support arches had been blurred by age until their features
were no longer visible. The stew bubbled and tiny wisps of vapour
rose when the bubbles burst. The air was close, foetid and hot.
And there was something else - the place had an even more
oppressive atmosphere than usual. The hair on the back of Felix's
neck prickled, as it sometimes did when he sensed the undercur-
rents of sorcery nearby.
'Doesn't look safe,' Rudi said, looking at a support arch dubi-
ously. Gotrek's face twisted as if this were a personal insult.
'Nonsense,' he said. These tunnels were dwarf-built a thousand
years ago. This is Khazalid workmanship. It'll last an eternity.'
To prove his point he banged the arch with his fist. Perhaps it was
just bad luck, but the gargoyle chose that moment to fall forward
from its perch. The Slayer had to leap to one side to avoid being hit
on the head and narrowly avoided skidding into the stew.
'Of course,' Gotrek added, 'Some of the labour was done by
human artisans. That gargoyle, for instance - typical shoddy man-
ling workmanship.'
No one laughed. Only Felix dared even smile. Gant stared up at
the ceiling. The lamp set down at his feet underlit his face, making
him look eerie and daemonic.
'We must be below the Old Quarter,' he said wistfully. Felix could
see he was contemplating the district of palaces. A strange melan-
choly expression transfigured his gaunt, bony features. Felix
wondered whether he was pondering the difference between his life
and the gilded existence of those above, contemplating the splen-
dours he would never know and the opportunities he would never
have. Momentarily he felt a certain sympathy for the man.
'There must be a fortune up there,' Gant said. 'Wish I could climb
up and get it. Well, no sense in wasting time. Let's get on with it.'
'What was that?' Gotrek asked suddenly. The others looked
around, startled.
'What was what?' Hef asked.
'And where was what?' added Spider.
'I heard something. Down that way.' All their gazes followed the
direction indicated by the Trollslayer's pointing finger.
'You're imagining things,' Rudi said.
'Dwarfs don't imagine things.'
'Aw sarge, do we have to look into this?' Rudi whined. 'I want to
get home.'
Gant rubbed his left eye with the knuckles of his right fist. He
seemed to be concentrating. Felix could see he was wavering. He
wanted to leave and be off to the tavern just as quickly as the rest of
them, but this was his responsibility. If something was wrong
beneath the palaces and anyone found out they had been there and
done nothing about it, then it was his neck for the block.
'We'd better look into it.' he said eventually, ignoring the groans
of his fellow sewerjacks.
'It shouldn't take long. I'll lay odds it's nothing anyway.'
Knowing his luck, Felix decided, that was a bet he wouldn't take.
Water dripped down from the arch of the tunnel. Gant had nar-
rowed the aperture of his lantern so that only the faintest
glimmering of light was visible. From ahead came the sound of
voices. Even Felix could hear them now.
One of the voices was human, with an aristocratic accent. It was
impossible to believe the other belonged to a man. It was high-
pitched, eerie and chittering. If a rat had been given the voice of a
human being it would have sounded like this.
Gant stopped and turned to look back at his men, his face pale
and worried. He obviously didn't want to go on. Glancing round
the faces of his fellow sewerjacks, Felix knew they all felt the same.
It was the end of the day. They were all tired and scared and up
ahead was something they didn't want to meet. But they were sew-
erjacks; men whose only virtue was courage and the willingness to
face what others would not, in a place where others would not go.
They had a certain pride.
Gotrek tossed the hatchet into the air. It spun upward, blade
catching a little of the light. With no apparent effort the Trollslayer
caught it by the haft as it fell. Spider pulled his long-bladed knife
from its sheath and shrugged. Hef gave a feral smile. Rudi looked
down at his shortsword and nodded. Gant grinned. The Trollslayer
looked pleased. He was in the company of the sort of maniacs he
could understand.
Gant gestured softly and they shuffled forward, picking their way
carefully and quietly along the slimy ledge. As they turned the bend
he opened up his lantern to illuminate their prey.
'Your payment, a token of my esteem. Something for your own
personal use,' Felix heard the aristocratic voice say. Two figures
stood frozen like trolls in a fairy tale, petrified by the sudden bright
light. One was a tall man, garbed in a long black robe like a monk's.
His face was patrician: fine-boned, cold and aloof. His black hair
was cut short, ending in a widow's peak above his forehead. He was
reaching forward to hand the other figure something that glowed
eerily.
Felix recognised it. He had seen the substance before, in the
abandoned dwarf fortress of Karak Eight Peaks. It was a ball of
warpstone. The recipient was short and inhuman. Its fur was grey,
its eyes pink; its long hairless tail reminded Felix of a great worm.
As the thing turned to squint at the light, the tail lashed. It reached
inside its long, patchwork robes and clutched something in its
taloned paws. From its belt hung an unscabbarded rusty, saw-
toothed blade.
'Skaven!' Gotrek roared. 'Prepare to die!'
'Fool-fool, you said you were not followed,' the thing chittered at
its human companion. 'You said no one knew.'
'Stay where you are!' Gant said. 'Whoever you are, you're under
arrest on suspicion of witchcraft, treason and unnatural practices
with animals.'
The sergeant's confidence had been restored by the fact there
were only two of them. Even the fact that one of the perpetrators
was a monster seemed to leave him undaunted.
'Hef, Spider, take them and bind them.' The rat-thing suddenly
threw the sphere it had withdrawn from its clothing.
'Die-die, foolish manthings.'
'Hold your breath!' Gotrek shouted. His hatchet hurtled forward
simultaneously.
The skaven's sphere tinlded and shattered like glass and an
unhealthy looking green cloud billowed outward. As he shoved
Felix back down the corridor, Gotrek grabbed Rudi and pulled him
with them. From inside the gas-cloud came the sound of gurgling
and choking. Felix felt his eyes begin to water.
Everything went dark as the lantern went out. It was like being
caught in a nightmare. He couldn't see, he was afraid to take a
breath, he was stuck in a narrow corridor underground and some-
where out there was a monster armed with deadly,
incomprehensible weapons.
Felix felt the slick slime of the stone under his hands. As he fum-
bled he suddenly felt nothing. His hand was over the stew. He felt
unbalanced and afraid to move, as if he could suddenly topple in
any direction and plunge into the sewage. He closed his eyes to keep
them from stinging and forced himself to move on. His heart
pounded. His lungs felt as if they were about to burst. The flesh
between his shoulder blades crawled.
He expected a saw-toothed blade to be plunged into his back at
any moment. He could hear someone trying to scream behind him
and failing. They gurgled and gasped and their breathing sounded
terribly laboured as if their lungs had filled with fluid.
It was the gas, Felix realised. Gotrek had told him of the foul
weapons which the skaven used, the products of a Chaos-inspired
alchemy allied to a warped and inhuman imagination. He knew
that to take one breath of that foul-smelling air was to die. He also
knew that he could not keep from breathing indefinitely.
Think, he told himself. Find a place where the air is clear. Keep
moving. Get away from the killing cloud. Don't panic. Don't think
about the huge rat-like shape creeping ever closer in the dark with
its blade bared. As long as you keep calm you'll be safe. Slowly,
inch by torturous inch, his lungs screaming for air, he forced him-
self to crawl towards safety.
Then the weight fell on him. Silver stars flickered before his eyes
and all the air was driven from his lungs. Before he could stop him-
self he took in a mouthful of the foul air. He lay in the dark gasping
and slowly it dawned on him that he wasn't dead. He wasn't chok-
ing. No knife had been driven into his back. He forced himself to
try and move. He couldn't. It was as if a great weight lay across him.
Terror flashed through his mind. Maybe his back was broken.
Maybe he was a cripple.
'Is that you, Felix?' he heard Rudi whisper. Felix almost laughed
with relief. His burden was his huge fellow sewerjack.
'Yes... where are the others?'
'I'm all right,' he heard Hef say.
'Me too, brother.' That was Spider.
'Gotrek, where are you?' No answer. Had the gas got him? It
seemed impossible. The Trollslayer couldn't be dead. Nothing as
insidious as gas could have killed him. It wouldn't be fair.
'Where's the sarge?'
'Anybody got some light?'
Flint sparked. A lantern flickered to life. Felix saw that something
large was shuffling towards them along the shadows of the ledge.
Instinctively his hand reached for his sword. It wasn't there. He had
dropped it when he fell. The others stood poised and waiting.
'It's me,' said the Trollslayer. 'Bloody human got away. His legs
were longer.'
'Where's Gant?' Felix asked.
'Look for yourself, manling.'
Felix squeezed past and went to do so. The gas had vanished as
quickly as it appeared. But it had done its work on Sergeant Gant.
He lay in a pool of blood. His eyes were wide and staring. Trickles
of red emerged from his nostrils and mouth.
Felix checked the body. It was already cooling and there was no
pulse. There was no wound on the corpse.
'How did he die, Gotrek?' Felix knew about magic but the fact
that a man could be killed and have no mark left on him made his
mind reel.
'He drowned, manling. He drowned in his own blood.' The
Slayer's voice was cold and furious.
Was that how he dealt with fear, Felix wondered? By turning it
into anger. Only after the dwarf went over and started kicking the
corpse did he notice the dead skaven. Its skull had been split by the
thrown hatchet.
Wearily Felix lay on his pallet of straw and stared at the cracked
ceiling, too tired even to sleep. From below came the sound of
shouting as Lisabette argued with one of her seemingly inter-
minable stream of customers.
Felix felt like banging on the floor and telling them to either shut
up or get out, but he knew that it would only cause more trouble
than it would solve. As he did every night, he resolved that he would
begin looking for another rooming house tomorrow. He knew that
tomorrow night he would be too tired to start.
Ideas chased each other like frolicking rats inside the cavern of
his brain. He was at that stage where weariness made his thoughts
strange even to himself. Odd conjunctions of images and maze-like
chains of reasoning came from nowhere and went nowhere in his
mind. He was too tired even to be angry about the fate of Sergeant
Gant, killed in the line of duty and destined for a pauper's grave on
the fringes of the Gardens of Morr. A watch captain too bored to pay
much attention to reports of monsters in the sewers. No family to
mourn him, no friends save his fellow sewerjacks, who were even
now toasting his memory in the Drunken Guardsman.
Gant was a cold corpse now. And the same thing could so easily
have happened to me, Felix thought. If he had been in the wrong
place when the globe exploded. If Gotrek had not told us to hold
our breath. If the Slayer had not pushed him away from the gas. If.
If. If. So many ifs.
What was he doing, anyway? Was this how he intended to spend
the rest of his days; chasing monsters in the dark? His life seemed
to have no reason to it any more. It merely moved from one violent
episode to the next.
He thought of the alternatives. Where would he have been now
if he had not killed Wolfgang Krassner in that duel, if he had not
been expelled from university, if he had not been disinherited by
his father? Would he be, like his brothers, working in the family
business: married, secure, settled? Or would something else have
gone wrong? Who could tell?
A small black rat scuttled across the rafters of the room. When he
had first viewed this attic with its one small window, he had imag-
ined that it would at least be free from the rats which infested all of
the buildings in the New Quarter. He had deluded himself with the
thought that the rodents would have heart attacks from the effort of
climbing all those stairs. He had been wrong. The rats of the New
Quarter were bold and adventurous and looked better fed than
many of the humans. He had seen some of the larger ones chasing
a cat.
Felix shuddered. Now he wished he had not started thinking
about rats - it made him think of the mysterious aristocrat and the
skaven in the sewers. What had been the purpose of that clandes-
tine meeting? What profit could any man find in dealing with such
alien monstrosities? And how could it be that folk could roister and
whore through the teeming streets of Nuln and be unaware of the
fact that evil things burrowed and crawled and nested not six yards
beneath their feet? Perhaps they just didn't want to know. Perhaps
it was true, as some philosophers claimed, that the end of the world
was coming and it was best to simply lose oneself in whatever plea-
sures one could find.
Footsteps approached on the stairs. He could hear the old rickety
boards creak under the weight. He had been going to complain that
the whole place was a firetrap but Frau Zorin had always seemed
too pitiful and poor to bother.
The footsteps did not stop on the landing below but continued
to come closer.
Felix reached beneath his pillow for his knife. He could think of
no one who would be visiting him at this time of night and Frau
Zorin's was right in the roughest part of the New Quarter.
Noiselessly he rose and padded on bare feet to the door. He sti-
fled a curse as a splinter embedded itself in the sole of his foot.
There was a knock on the door.
'Who is it?' Felix asked, although he already knew the answer. He
recognised the old widow woman's wheezing breath even through
the thin wood.
'It's me,' Frau Zorin shrieked. 'You have visitors, Herr Jaeger.'
Cautiously Felix opened the door. Outside stood two huge burly
men. They carried clubs in their hands and looked as if they knew
how to use them. It was the man they flanked that interested Felix.
He was handing the landlady a gold coin, which she took with an
ingratiating smile. As the man turned to look at the door Felix
recognised him. It was his brother, Otto.
'Come in,' Felix said, holding the door open. Otto stood staring
at him for a long time, as if he couldn't quite recognise his younger
brother. Then he strode into the room.
'Franz, Karl, remain outside,' he said quietly. His voice carried an
authority that Felix had not heard in it before, an echo of their
father's calm, curt manner.
Felix was suddenly acutely aware of the poverty of his surround-
ings: the uncarpeted floor, the straw pallet, the bare walls, the hole
in the sloping roof. He saw the whole scene through his brother's
eyes and wasn't at all impressed.
'What do you want, Otto?' he asked brusquely.
'Your taste in accommodation hasn't changed much, has it? Still
slumming.'
'You haven't come all the way from Altdorf to discuss my domes-
tic arrangements. What do you want?'
'Do you have to hold that knife so ready? I'm not going to rob
you. If I was, I would have brought Karl and Franz in.'
Felix slid the knife back into its scabbard. 'Maybe I would sur-
prise Karl and Franz.'
Otto tilted his head to one side and studied Felix's face. 'Maybe
you would at that. You've changed, little brother.'
'So have you.' It was true. Otto was still the same height as Felix
but he was far broader. He had put on weight. His chest had thick-
ened and his hips broadened. His large soft belly strained against
his broad leather belt. Felix guessed that his thick blond beard hid
several chins. His cheeks were fatter and seemed padded. His hair
was thinner and there were bags under his eyes. His head jutted for-
ward aggressively. He had grown to resemble the old man. 'You
look more like father.'
Otto smiled wryly. 'Sad but true. Too much good living, I'm
afraid. You look like you could use some yourself. You've become
very skinny.'
'How did you find me?'
'Come on, Felix. How do you think I found you? We have our
agents and we wanted to find you. How many tall blond men trav-
elling in the company of dwarf Slayers do you think there are in the
Empire? When the report came into my office about two mercenar-
ies answering the description I thought I'd better investigate.'
'Your office?'
'I run the business in Nuln now.'
'What happened to Schaffer?'
'Vanished.'
'With money?'
'Apparently not. We think he was deemed politically undesirable.
The Countess has a very efficient secret police. Things happen in
Nuln these days.'
'Not Schaffer! There was never a more loyal citizen in the Empire.
He thought the sun shone out of the Emperor's fundament.'
'Nuln is only just part of the Empire, brother. Countess
Emmanuelle rules here.'
'But she's the most flighty woman in the Empire, or so they say.'
'Von Halstadt, her Chief Magistrate, is very efficient. He's the real
ruler of Nuln. He hates mutants. And rumour has it that Schaffer
had begun to show stigmata.'
'Never.'
'That's what I said. But believe this, little brother: Nuln is no
place to come under suspicion of being a mutant. Such people van-
ish.'
'But it's the most liberal city of the Empire.'
'Not any more.' Otto looked around fearfully as if realising that
he had said too much. Felix shook his head ruefully. 'Don't worry,
brother. No spies here.'
'Don't be too sure about that, Felix,' he said quietly. 'In these
days, in this city, walls have ears.' When he spoke again his voice
was loud and held a note of false heartiness. 'Anyway I came
around to ask if you'd like to dine with me tomorrow. We can eat
out if you'd like.'
Felix half wanted to refuse and half wanted to talk to his
brother some more. There was much family news to catch up on
and perhaps the possibility of returning to the fold. That thought
alone frightened him as well as intrigued him.
'Yes, I'd like that.'
'Good. I'll have my coach collect you from here.'
'After I've finished work.' Otto shook his head slowly. 'Of
course, Felix. Of course.'
They said their goodbyes. It was only after his brother had left
that Felix began to wonder what could so frighten a man of
Otto's power and influence that he would worry about eaves-
droppers in a place like Frau Zorin's.
Fritz von Halstadt, head of the secret police of Nuln, sat among
his files and brooded. That damned dwarf had come within an
inch of catching him. He had actually tried to lay his filthy hands
on him. He had come so near to undoing all his good work. One
blow would have been enough. It would have brought Chaos
and darkness to the city von Halstadt was sworn to protect.
Von Halstadt reached out and raised his cut glass pitcher. The
water was still warm. Good, the servant had boiled it for exactly
eleven minutes as he commanded. He was to be commended.
Von Halstadt poured some into a glass and inspected it. He
raised the glass to the light and checked it for sediment, for stuff
floating in it. There was none. No contamination. Good.
Chaos could come so easily. It was everywhere. The wise knew
that and used it to their, advantage. Chaos could take many
forms; some were worse than others. There were relatively
benign forms, like the skaven - and there was the festering evil
of mutation.
Von Halstadt knew that the rat-men just wanted to be left
alone, to rule their underground kingdom and pursue their own
form of civilisation. They were intelligent and sophisticated and
they could be dealt with. If you had what they wanted, they
would make and keep bargains. Certainly they had their own
plans, but that made them comprehensible, controllable. They
were not like mutants: vile, insidious, evil things that lurked
everywhere, that hid in secret and manipulated the world.
We could all so easily be puppets on the end of the mutant's
foul strings, he thought. That is why we must be vigilant. The
enemy are everywhere, and more and more are spawned all the
time.
The commoners were the worst for it, spawning an endless string
of slovenly, lazy, good-for-nothings. Most mutants were born
among the herd. It made a sick kind of sense. There were more of
them and they were notoriously immoral and lewd and licentious.
The thought made him rigid with horror. He knew that the
mutants took advantage of the commoners' stupidity. They were
so clever. They used the ill-educated, lazy oafs: filled their heads
with seditious nonsense, fed their envious anger of their betters,
whipped them up to riot and loot and destroy. Look at how they
had ruined his poor father, burned the estate to the ground in
one of their brutish uprisings. And his father had been the kind-
est and gentlest man who had ever lived.
Well, Fritz von Halstadt would not make that mistake. He was
too clever and too strong. He knew how to deal with revolutionar-
ies and upstarts. He would stand guard and protect mankind from
the menace of the mutant. He would fight them with their own
weapons; terror, cunning and ruthless violence.
That was why he kept his files, even though his beloved ruler
Emmanuelle laughed at them, calling them his secret pornography.
Within these lovingly detailed and carefully cross-indexed records
was a kind of power. Information was power. He knew who all the
potential revolutionaries were. His web of spies and agents kept
him informed. He knew which nobles secretly belonged to the Dark
Cults and had them watched at all times. He had sources that could
penetrate any meeting place, and who no one ever suspected.
That was part of his bargain with the skaven. They knew many
things and could find out many more. Their little spies were every-
where, unsuspected. He used their dark wisdom and dealt with the
lesser of two evils to keep the greater anarchy at bay.
He picked up the small framed portrait Emmanuelle had given
him and licked his thin lips. He thought about her choice of words
for his files: 'pornography'. He was shocked that she had used such
a word, even knew what it meant. It must be that brother of hers!
Leos was a bad influence. Emmanuelle was too good, too pure, too
unsullied to have learned such a word herself. Perhaps he should
put his spies on her, just to watch out for-
No, she was his ruler! He did this all for her. Though the count-
ess could not see its worth now, one day she would. Spying on her
would be crossing a line he had set for himself. Besides, sometimes
he suspected that the lies which he heard about her might just con-
ceivably contain a kernel of truth, and finding out that would be too
painful.
He put the picture back down on his desk. He had been allowing
himself to drift from the main problem. The dwarf and the sewer-
jacks. Could they have recognised him? And what would he do about
it if they had? They were simple men doing their simple job. Like
him, they were struggling to keep Chaos at bay. But would they
understand the necessity of what he did? If they did not, perhaps they
would understand that it was necessary to ensure their silence forever.
Slowly the HUNGOver sewerjacks lowered themselves into the depths.
One by one they clambered down the ladders lowered through the
access ports. Rudi, now acting sergeant, lit the lantern and illumi-
nated the tunnel.
The stink hit Felix like a hammer even as he carefully stepped
from the ladder onto the ledge. This was the trickiest part of the
operation. There was only about one foot clearance between the
ladder and the edge of the walkway. A misstep had carried many a
still-drunk sewerjack into the stew.
'You missed yourself last night, young Felix,' Hef said.
'We gave the sarge a fine send-off,' Spider added.
'Gotrek downed seven jacks of ale one after the other and wasn't
even sick. We took a week's wages off the first watch.'
'I'm very pleased for you,' Felix said. Gotrek looked none the
worse for his exploits. Of all the sewerjacks he was the only one
who didn't appear ill. The rest were ghastly, pale, and walked with
the shuffling gait of old men.
'Ah, there's nothing like the smell of the stew to clear your head
in the morning,' Hef said, proceeding to stick his head out over the
edge of the walkway and be violently sick.
'Fair clears the head it does,' Rudi added, with no trace of irony.
'I can see that,' Felix said.
'We're going to sweep through the area where the sarge got taken,'
Rudi said. ' We decided it last night. We want to see if we can find
the scumbag who deals with the skaven. And maybe if we can't find
him we'll find some of his pink-tailed little friends.'
'And what if they've got more of those gas bombs?' Felix asked.
'Not to worry. Gotrek's an old tunnel fighter. He explained how
to deal with it.'
'Oh, did he? '
'Yes. We soak our scarves in piss and breathe through them. That
cuts out the gas.'
'I knew it would be something like that,' Felix said, glaring at
the Trollslayer, wondering if the others were really convinced by
Gotrek's claims or whether they were simply humouring him.
One look at their haggard, determined faces convinced him that
it was the former.
'It's true, manling. My ancestors fought the skaven at Karak Eight
Peaks and it worked for them.'
'If you say so,' Felix said. He could tell it was going to be a long
day.
They followed the route of the previous day towards the area
beneath the Old Quarter. As they went, Felix had time to reflect on
how strange his life was. His brother's house was somewhere above
his head and he had not known it. He had not even known Otto
was in the city. The fact that his brother had found him was cer-
tainly a testimony to the efficiency of his spy network.
Felix suspected that such things were necessary to anyone who
wanted to do business in Nuln nowadays. What Otto had said
about Schaffer and the countess's secret police was worrying too.
Felix was sorry for the old man but he was more worried about him-
self. Both he and the Trollslayer were wanted by the law for their
part in the great Window Tax riots in Altdorf. If the secret police
were so efficient here, and he and Gotrek were really so recognis-
able, then they too might vanish. He consoled himself with the
thought that the capital was a long way away and that the local
authorities would probably not be interested in what happened
outside their jurisdiction.
In a way it was even more reassuring that they were part of the
sewer watch. It was tacitly understood that the watch did not look
too closely into the backgrounds of those who volunteered for it.
Indeed it was said to be a sure way of having them ignore your pre-
vious crimes. All of the others had been involved in acts of criminal
violence at some point in their lives, or so they claimed. No, there
wasn't too much to worry about. He hoped.
More immediately worrying was the prospect that they might
actually come across some skaven. He did not fancy facing such
vicious foes in their own environment. Frantically he tried to
recall what Gotrek had told him of the rat-men, hoping to
remember something that would give him an edge if it came to
a fight. He knew that they were a race of vicious mutant rats,
products of warpstone in ancient times. They were said to
inhabit a great, polluted city called Skavenblight, the location of
which nobody knew. Rumour had it that they were divided up
into clans, each of which had their own function: the practice of
sorcery, the making of war, the breeding of monsters and so
forth. They were lighter than a man but faster and more vicious,
and possessed of a feral intelligence which made them deadly
enemies.
He could recall one book he had read about the battles of the
ancients that described their few interventions on surface battle-
fields: their terrifying charges in great, chittering hordes, their
twisted evil and their penchant for torturing their prisoners. It had
been a skaven horde which had undermined the walls of Castle
Siegfried and broke the siege after two years of trying. Legend said
that Prince Karsten had paid a terrible price for the service of his
allies. Sigmar himself destroyed an army of them before his ascen-
sion to the heavens. It had been one of his less well-known exploits.
Felix himself had seen some evidence of the skaven's handiwork
in Karak Eight Peaks. The thought of the warpstone-polluted wells
and the great mutated troll gave him the chills even after all this
time. He hoped that he would not have to face any more of their
monstrous creations in his lifetime. Looking at the others he could
tell that they did not share his hope.
Until yesterday, Felix had never given a second thought to the
number of rats in the sewers. Now he saw that they were every-
where. They scuttled away from the lights as the watchmen
approached and he could hear the pitter-patter of their feet behind
them after they had gone. Their eyes caught the reflection of the
lantern and glittered like tiny stars far off in the darkness of the
undercity.
He found himself wondering now if there was any connection
between the rats and the skaven. He started to imagine the little
ones as spies for their larger brethren. It was a madman's fantasy, he
knew, one straight out of the tales of sorcery he had read as a boy,
but the more he thought of it the more terrifying the prospect
became. Rats were everywhere in the great cities of man, living amid
the garbage and refuse of civilisation. They could see much and
overhear much and go, if not unnoticed, at least unsuspected.
He began to feel their cold eyes staring malevolently at him
even as he walked. The walls of the sewer seemed to close in about
him threateningly and he imagined himself caught in a vast war-
ren. Thinking of the skaven out there, it suddenly seemed possible
to him that he was in a vast burrow, that he and the others had
been shrunk to the size of mice and that the skaven were ordinary
rats, walking upright and dressed in a fashion that aped man.
The fantasy became so vivid and compelling that he began to
wonder whether the fumes of the stew were going to his head or
whether the scent-deadening narcotics prescribed by the city
alchemists had hallucinatory side-effects.
'Steady, manling,' he heard Gotrek say. 'You're looking very pale
there.'
'I was just thinking about the rats.'
'In the tunnels your mind creates its own foes. It's the first thing
a tunnel fighter learns to guard against.'
'You've done this sort of thing before then,' Felix said, half sar-
castically.
'Yes, manling. I was fighting in the depths before ever your father
was born. The ways around the Everpeak are never free of foes and
all the citizens of the King's Council do their share of military ser-
vice in the depths. More young dwarfs die that way than any other.'
Gotrek was being unusually forthright, as he sometimes was
before moments of great peril. Danger made him garrulous, as if he
wanted to communicate with others only when he realised he
might never get another chance. Or perhaps he was simply still
drunk from the night before. Felix realised he would never know.
Fathoming the dwarf's alien mind was nearly as far beyond him as
was understanding a skaven.
'I can remember my first time in the tunnels. Everything seemed
cramped. Every sound was the tread of some secret enemy. If you
listen with fearful ears you are soon surrounded by foes. When the
true foe comes you have no idea from which quarter. Stay calm,
manling. You'll live longer.'
'Easy for you to say,' Felix muttered as the hefty Slayer shoved
past. All the same, he was reassured by Gotrek's presence.
With some trepidation they approached the place where Gant had
been killed. Mist rose from the surface of the stew and in places a
slow current was evident in the sludge. The area of the fight looked
very much the same as Felix remembered it, except that the body
was gone. The area where the corpse had lain was disturbed.
There was a trail in the slime that suddenly ended at the ledgeside,
as if the body had been dragged a short way, then dumped. He knew
they should have shifted it yesterday, when they had the chance, but
they had been too shaken, disturbed and excited by what had hap-
pened to do so. No one had wanted to carry the mangy, rat-man
body. Now it wasn't there.
'Someone took it,' Hef said.
'Wonder who?' Spider said.
Gotrek scanned the ledge where the body had been. He bent
down and peered closely at the tracks, then rubbed his eye-patch
with his right fist. The hatchet which had killed the skaven came
dangerously close to his tattooed scalp.
Wasn't a man, anyway. That's for sure.'
'All sorts of scavengers in the sewers,' Rudi said. He voiced the
common belief of all sewerjacks. 'There are things you wouldn't
believe living in the stew.'
'I don't think it was any scavenging animal,' Gotrek said.
'Skaven,' Felix said, voicing their unspoken thoughts.
Too big. One of them was anyway. The other tracks might be
skaven.' Felix peered out into the gloom; it suddenly appeared even
more menacing.
'How big?' He cursed himself for taking on the same monosyl-
labic way of speaking as the others. 'How large exactly was this
creature you referred to, Gotrek?'
'Perhaps taller than you, manling. Perhaps heavier than Rudi.'
'Could it be one of the mutants you say the skaven breed? A
hybrid of some sort?'
Yes.'
'But how can all those prints simply vanish?' Felix asked. 'They
can't all have thrown themselves in the stew, can they?'
'Sorcery,' Hef said.
'Of the blackest sort,' Spider added.
Gotrek looked down at the ledge and cursed in his native tongue.
He was angry and his beard bristled. The light of mad violence
shone in his one good eye. 'They can't just disappear,' he said. 'It's
not possible.'
'Could they have used a boat?' Felix asked. The idea had just
struck him. The others looked at him incredulously.
'Use a boat?' Hef said.
'In the stew?' Spider said.
'Don't be stupid,' Rudi said. Felix flushed.
'I'm not being stupid. Look, the tracks end here. It would be quite
simple for someone to step down from the ledge into a small skiff.'
That's the daftest thing I've ever heard,' Rudi said. 'You've got
some imagination, young Felix. Who'd ever have thought of using a
boat down here?'
There's a lot of things you'd never think of,' Felix snapped. 'But
then thinking's not your strong suit, is it?' He looked at the other
sewerjacks and shook his head. 'You're right - a boat doesn't make
sense. Much better to believe they vanished by magic. Maybe a
cloud of pixies wafted in and carried them away.'
'That's right, a cloud of pixies. That's more like it,' Rudi said.
'He's being sarcastic, Rudi,' Spider said.
'A very sarcastic fellow, young Felix,' added Hef.
'Probably right though,' Gotrek said. 'A boat wouldn't be too
hard to come by. The sewers flow into the Reik, don't they? Easy to
steal a small boat.'
'But the outflows into the river all have bars,' Rudi said. To stop
vagrants getting in.'
'And what's our job, if not hunting down those self-same
vagrants when they file through the bars?' Felix asked. He could see
the idea was starting to filter into even Rudi's thick skull.
'But why, manling? Why use boats?' Felix felt briefly elated. It
wasn't often that Gotrek admitted that Felix might know more than
him. He considered the matter rapidly.
'Well for a start, they don't leave tracks. And they might be con-
nected with a smuggling operation. Suppose someone was bringing
warpstone in by river, for instance. Our noble skulker yesterday
seemed to be paying the rat-man off with it.'
'Boats make me sick. The only thing I hate more than boats is
elves,' Gotrek said as they set off again.
They searched for the rest of the day and found no trace of any
skaven, although they did find that the bars had been sawn away on
one of the outflows to the Reik.
Felix stepped out of the street and into the Golden Hammer. He
stepped from reality into a dream. The doorman held the great oak
door for him. Servile waiters ushered him away from the squalor of
the streets into a vast dining hall.
Richly clad people sat at well-filled tables, and dined and talked
by the light that sparkled from huge crystal chandeliers. Portraits of
great Imperial heroes watched the diners sternly from the walls.
Felix recognised Sigmar and Magnus and Frederick the Bold. The
style of the brushwork was Vespasian's, the most famous Nulner
painter of the past three centuries. The far wall was dominated by a
portrait of the Elector Emmanuelle, a ravishing raven-haired beauty
garbed in a less than modest ball gown.
Felix wished his borrowed clothing fitted him better. He was
wearing some of his brother's old garments. Once, he and Otto had
been of the same size and build, but in the years of his wandering
Felix had grown thinner and Otto more stout. The linen shirt felt
baggy and the velvet vest felt loose. The trousers had been cinched
with a leather belt tightened to its last notch. The boots were a com-
fortable fit, though, as was the cap. He had tilted it to a rakish angle
to show off the peacock feather in the band. He let his hand toy idly
with the golden pomander that dangled from a chain round his
neck. The smell of fine Bretonnian perfume wafted up from it. It was
nice to smell something other than the sewers.
The servant led him to a booth in the corner in which Otto sat.
He had a leather-bound accounts book in front of him and was tick-
ing entries off in it with a quill pen. As Felix approached he looked
up and smiled. 'Welcome, little brother. You're looking much better
for a bath and a change of clothes.'
Having studied himself in the great silvered mirror in Otto's
townhouse earlier, Felix was forced to agree. A warm bath, scented
oil and a change of clothing had made him feel like a new man. In
the looking glass he had seen the foppish young dandy he once had
been, albeit with more lines round the eyes and a firmer, narrower
set to the mouth.
This is a very charming establishment,' he said.
'You could dine here every evening if you wished.'
'What do you mean, brother?'
'Simply that there is a place for you in the family business.'
Felix looked around to see if they were being overheard. 'You
know I'm still a wanted man in Altdorf because of the Window Tax
business?'
'You exaggerate your notoriety, little brother. No one knows who
the leaders of that riot were. Altdorf isn't Nuln, you know.'
'You've said yourself Gotrek is a very easily recognisable figure.'
'We're not offering the Trollslayer employment. We're offering
you your birthright.' And there it was; what Felix had half hoped for
and half feared. His family would take him back. He could give up
the restless uncomfortable life of the adventurer and return once
more to Altdorf and his books. It would mean a life chained to the
ledgers and the warehouses, but it would be safe. And one day he
would be rich.
It was a tempting prospect. No more crawling around in sewers.
No more beatings at the hands of thugs. No more catching strange
illnesses in terrible, out-of-the-way places. No more muscle-searing
treks through wild, savage lands. No more descents into darkness.
No more confrontations with the Chaos-worshipping minions of
obscure cults. No more adventures.
He wouldn't have to put up with Gotrek's sullenness or his
whims any more. He could forget his oath to follow the Trollslayer
and record his doom in an epic poem. The promise had been made
when he was drunk; surely it didn't count? He would be his own
master. And yet, something held him back.
'I'll have to think about it,' he said.
'What is there to think about, man? You can't actually tell me that
you prefer being a sewerjack to being a merchant, can you? Most peo-
ple would kill to be given this opportunity.'
'I said, I'll think about it.'
They ate on in uncomfortable silence. After some minutes, the
door to the great room opened and a tall man was led in by the ser-
vant. He was clad in black and his monkish robes made him seem
out of place in his opulent setting. His face was thin and ascetic, and
his black hair ended above his forehead in a widow's peak.
As he crossed the room, silence spread in his wake. Felix saw that
the wealthy diners were afraid of him. As he passed close to the table
Felix was shocked to recognise him: it was unquestionably the man
he had seen in the sewers with the skaven. His mind reeled. He had
assumed that the man was some kind of sorcerer or renegade. He pic-
tured a cultist or a desperado. He had not expected to see him here
in the haunts of Nuln's wealthiest and most respectable citizens.
What's the matter, brother? You look like you've seen a ghost.'
'Who- who is that man?'
Otto let out a long sigh. You don't want to know. He's not a man
that you ask questions about. He asks them about you.'
'Who is he, Otto? Do I have to go over and ask him?' Felix saw a
look of alarm and admiration pass across his brother's face.
'I do believe you would, too, Felix,' he whispered. Very well. That
is Chief Magistrate Fritz von Halstadt, the head of Countess
Emmanuelle's secret police.'
Tell me about him.'
There are those who see him as the enemy of corruption every-
where. He is hard-working and no one doubts his sincerity. He
sincerely hates mutants and for that reason he has the backing of the
Temple of Ulric. His home is guarded by their Templars.'
'I thought the Temple of Ulric had no power here, that the count-
ess disliked it.'
That was before von Halstadt's rise to power. He came from being
a minor court functionary to the most powerful man in the city-state
very quickly. Some say it was by blackmail; some say his enemies
have a habit of being found dead under mysterious circumstances.
He's risen far for a man whose father was a minor nobleman in an
out-of-the-way province. A callous cunning old swine, by all
accounts.
'Von Halstadt is cold, cruel and dangerous, not just because of his
influence. He has a deadly blade. He's killed several people because
they've insulted the honour of the countess.'
'I would have thought her brother, Leos, did enough of that with-
out him having to.'
'Leos is not always about and rumour has it that our chief mag-
istrate would be prepared to fight him over the countess. Apparently
he's got it hard for her.'
Then he's mad. Leos is the deadliest blade in the Empire and
Emmanuelle's not worth fighting over.'
Otto shrugged. Felix stared at von Halstadt, wondering what the
connection between the skaven and the head of the countess's secret
police could be. And hoping against hope that the man did not
recognise him.
Von Halstadt was tired. Not even his usual excellent supper could
cheer him. His mind was filled with worry and the cares of high
office. He looked around at his fellow diners and returned their
smiles, but in his heart of hearts he despised them. Shallow, indo-
lent cattle. Garbed like nobles but with the hearts of shopkeepers.
He knew that they needed him. They needed him to keep Chaos at
bay. They needed him to do the work they were too soft to do them-
selves. They were barely worth his contempt.
It had been a trying day. Young Helmut Slazinger had failed to
confess, despite von Halstadt himself supervising the torture imple-
ments. It was strange how some of them maintained their
innocence even unto the grave. Even when they knew that he knew
they were guilty. His secret sources had told him that Slazinger
belonged to a clandestine cell of Slaanesh-worshipping cultists. The
jailers had been unable to find any of the usual tattoos that marked
coven members, but that meant nothing. His most trusted infor-
mants, the skaven, had let him in on the secret. That in fear of his
ruthless crusade, his hidden enemies had taken to using sorcerous
tattoos visible only to fellow coven members.
Gods, how insidious the mutant fiends were! Now they could be
everywhere; they could be sitting right in this very room, their initi-
ation tattoos plain to each other on their faces and he would not
know. They could be sitting there right now mocking him and there
was nothing he could do about it. That lanky young fellow in the
ill-fitting clothes could be one. He was certainly studying von Hal-
stadt intently enough. And come to think of it, there was something
quite sinister about him. Perhaps he should be the next subject of
an official investigation.
No, get a grip on yourself, von Halstadt told himself. They can-
not hide forever. The blinding light of logic can pierce the deepest
darkness of falsity. So his father had always told him before yet
another beating for his sins, real or imagined. No, his father had
been correct. Von Halstadt had done wrong. Even if he could not
work out exactly what. The beatings had been for his own good, to
drive out sin. His father had been a good man, doing the work of
the righteous. That was why he smiled as he punished him. He
didn't enjoy it. He told him that often and often. It was for his own
good. In a way it had been a great lesson. He had learned that it was
often necessary to do painful, bad things for the greater good.
It had made him hard. It enabled him to do what he had to
today, free from the weakness of lesser men. It enabled him to stand
up for right. It had made him into a man his father could be proud
of and he should be grateful. He was strong without being mali-
cious. He was like his father.
He had taken no pleasure in the torture of young Slazinger. He
had taken no pleasure in the skaven report that the nobleman was
a Slaaneshi cultist. Although he had to admit that it was a fortunate
coincidence, given the rumours concerning Slazinger and
Emmanuelle. More malicious lies: someone as pure as the countess
would not, could not, have anything to do with the likes of
Slazinger. The worm was a notorious rake, the sort of handsome
young dandy who thought it witty to speak out against the lawful
servants of the state, to criticise the harsh measures needed to main-
tain law and order in this festering sink of iniquity and sin.
He pushed Slazinger from his mind and gave his thoughts over
to other matters. His agent in the watch house had brought him the
report on the Gant incident. No action was being taken. It would
cost too much to make a full sweep through the sewers beneath the
Old Quarter and that would cut into the take the watch captain got
from his station's financial allocation. Well, even corruption some-
times has its uses, thought von Halstadt.
His spy had brought him word that Gant's patrol had been nos-
ing around in the area of his death, though, which was more
worrying. They might accidentally come across some more skaven
going about their business. They might even discover the skiffs that
ran from the docks to van Niek's Emporium. He doubted, though,
that they could ever discover that the shop was simply a govern-
ment front which channelled warpstone from outside the city to
the skaven in payment for their services. He smiled.
It was an arrangement with a certain pleasing symmetry. He paid
the skaven in the currency they wanted. They did not seem to realise
it was both useless and dangerous. Warpstone actually caused muta-
tion. The skaven claimed to use it as food. Well, it was a relatively
harmless way of disposing of an incredibly dangerous substance
and it provided him with a fine source of information at the same
time.
Yes, a pleasing symmetry indeed. In a way, it was a pity that he
could not make known the service he was doing the Empire by
disposing of the evil stuff in a safe way. It had been a lucky day for
all mankind when von Halstadt had got lost in the sewers and
stumbled across the skaven. It was fortunate they had recognised
him as a man with whom they could do business.
He must get some more. This very evening he must contact
another skaven agent and see to it that the watchmen met with an
accident. He was sorry to have to do that to men who were only
doing their duty, but his security must come first.
He was the only man who understood the real dangers threat-
ening Nuln and he was the only man who could save the city. He
knew this wasn't simply vanity; it was the truth. Tonight he would
contact the new skaven leader, Grey Seer Thanquol, and order him
to eliminate his enemies. The thought of this secret use of his
power made him shiver. He told himself it was not with pleasure.
'I'm telling you I saw him last night,' Felix insisted. The other sew-
erjacks stared at him out of the gloom. Overhead he heard the
thunder of wheels as a cart passed over a manhole cover. 'At the
Golden Hammer. He was standing not twenty feet away from me.
His name is Fritz von Halstadt and he's the man we saw dealing
with the skaven.'
'Sure,' Rudi said, glancing back worriedly. 'And he was having
dinner with the Countess Emmanuelle and the enchanter
Drachenfels. What were you doing in the Golden Hammer any-
way? It's where nobs go. They wouldn't let a sewerjack in if his
clothes were made of spun gold. You don't expect us to believe
you were there.'
'My brother took me. He's a merchant. And I'm telling you
that's where I saw our man, von Halstadt.'
'You're not from Nuln, are you, young Felix?' Hef spoke calmly
and helpfully, as if he were genuinely concerned with clearing up
any misapprehension the young sewerjack might have. 'Do you
know who Fritz von Halstadt is?'
'The head of the Nuln secret police, is who he is. The scourge of
mutant scum in this city,' Spider said. A tic moved somewhere far
back in the twin's jaw. Felix had not realised the twins were such
great admirers of von Halstadt's. 'And the head of the secret police
don't go about consorting with rat-men.'
Why not?'
'Because he's the head of the secret police and the head of the
secret police wouldn't do that sort of thing. It stands to reason,
don't it.'
'Well, that is irrefutable logic, Rudi. But I'm telling you I saw him
with my own eyes. It was the man from the sewers.'
'Are you sure you're not mistaken, manling? It was very dark
down there and human eyesight is not good in the dark.'
'I'm certain,' said Felix. 'I've never been more certain of anything
in my life.'
'Well, young Felix, even if you're right, and I'm not saying that
you are, mind, what can we do about it? We can hardly go march-
ing up to the Countess Emmanuelle and say "By the way your
majesty, did you know your most trusted advisor has been sneaking
around the sewers below your palace in the company of giant talk-
ing rats?"' Hef didn't even smile as he said this.
'She'd ask you how much weirdroot you'd been chewing and
order her Kislevite lover to throw you in the cells,' Spider said.
Felix could see their point. What could they do? They were just
ordinary watchmen and the man he was talking about was the most
powerful person in the city. Perhaps it would be best just to forget
the whole thing. He was seeing Otto again this evening, was going
to have a fine meal in his townhouse. Soon he could be far from
here and it wasn't his problem.
But the thought nagged at him. What was the terrible and feared
master of the countess's secret police doing in the company of
skaven? What hold could they possibly have over him?
'Right, lads, enough of this,' Rudi said. 'Back to work.'
Hostleader Tzarkual Skab looked back at his stormvermin. They
filled this tunnel chamber and the smell of their musk was sweet.
His heart swelled with something akin to pride. These were big,
burly skaven and their black fur was sleek and well groomed. It
matched their fine lacquered black armour and their rune-encrusted
helms of black iron. They were elite: well fed, well turned out, dis-
ciplined, as far above the lowly clanrats and slaves as he was above
them. He commanded two dozen of the finest warriors his clan
could field. In the coming war this would be swelled to two hun-
dred or more.
He did not need the full force for this mission; this was simple.
The elimination of some pink flesh manthings. Easy. Grey Seer
Thanquol had made it plain it would be so. Even though he didn't
like Skrequal's replacement, he agreed. He doubted he would even
need four claws of stormvermin to deal with some lowly manthing
warriors. Behind him Thanquol gave a discreet little bark of impa-
tience. The rat-ogre which accompanied the sorcerer rumbled
angrily.
A little shimmer of fear passed through Tzarkual when he con-
templated the giant hybrid's formidable muscles and daws. He
would not want to face it in battle. It must have cost the grey seer a
fair stash of warpstone to purchase from the packmasters of Clan
Moulder, and from what Tzarkual had heard it would prove worth
every ounce.
Yet he would not let himself be hurried. There were certain pro-
prieties to be observed. He must keep face in front of his troops. He
allowed none of his anxiety to show in his bearing and he con-
trolled the urge to squirt the musk of fear.
He twitched his nose authoritatively and then lashed his tail to
get their attention. Two dozen pairs of alert pink eyes turned to
look at him. 'We go to the bigstink below the mancity,' he told
them. 'We go to kill five manthings who guard the tunnels. They
are enemies of our clanlord and have killed-dead a clanbrother,
yes. Vengeance and manblood will be ours. Fight well and more
breeders and more warptokens will be yours. Fight badly and I
will chew your guts with my own fangs.'
'We hear, hostleader,' they squeaked thunderously. 'Glory to the
clan. Vengeance for our clanbrother!'
Yes-yes, blood-vengeance for our clanbrother!' Tzarkual smiled,
revealing row on row of sharp serrated teeth. In skaven it was a ges-
ture of menace and his followers fell silent. He was pleased by the
fear he had imposed on them.
Yes, he wanted vengeance for Skrequal. They had belonged to the
same birthing, had fought their way to the top of their clan together.
Had connived and lulled and assassinated their way to power. He
understood his brother's ambitions and insofar as he trusted any-
body he had trusted Skrequal. He wanted the blood of his killers. It
would in some way make up for the inconvenience of having to
find another ally in the great game of clan politics.
Perhaps Thanquol might do, if the grey seer didn't attempt to slip
a saw-knife into his back first. Well, only the future would tell.
He covered his teeth once more and the stormvermin relaxed.
He was looking forward to visiting the undercity once more. He
liked slinking through the vast stinking maze that reminded him
of Skavenblight. It made a change from this hideously barren out-
post of the Underway he had been forced to occupy since Warlord
Skab dispatched him here. He was glad the stupid manthing had
enough sense to contact them about his problem. The guards
were potentially a threat to the great plan. Nothing must menace
their pawn before they took over the city.
He wasn't sure what the great plan was but that didn't matter.
He was a simple and vicious soldier. It was not his place to
philosophise on the ways the Thirteen Lords of Decay chose to
order the Universe. It was his task simply to kill the enemies of
Clan Skab. That was what he intended to do.
Felix was worried. It wasn't just the number of rats he had seen,
it was the way they followed him that was worrying. He told him-
self not to be stupid. The rats weren't following him. They were
just there, like they always were in the sewers. His imagination
was playing tricks on him, as it always did.
He gazed round what the other sewerjacks called 'the cathe-
dral'. It was a major confluence of several of the city's greatest
sewerways. It had been designed in a style he thought he recog-
nised from the halls of Karak Eight Peaks. He called it Dwarf
Imperial. The dwarfs who had built these sewers were refugees, he
knew. They had fled from the World's Edge Mountains when their
lands had become too dangerous. They had come to the human
lands bringing a great store of engineering knowledge and a
tremendous nostalgia for their ancestral homes under the moun-
tains.
The then-Elector of Nuln had been an enlightened man. He
put their knowledge and skills to good use, improving the sanita-
tion of his fast-growing city. They had responded to the challenge
by creating places that resembled great temples rather than sew-
ers. Mighty arches supported masonry that had lasted nearly a
thousand years. Intricate carved stonework adorned the arches,
revealing the traditional dwarf hammer and shield designs. The
work had been made beautiful in its way, as well as functional. Of
course, time had eroded much of it. Coarse patchworks of plaster
and brick filled gaps where human repair teams less skilled than
the original builders had been at work. But this place almost
directly below the elector's palace was a sewer fit for an emperor.
Then suddenly Felix saw it. He saw how vulnerable those
ancient master builders had made the city. He remembered
Gotrek's tale of how the skaven had attacked Karak Eight Peaks
from the direction least expected: from below.
The sewers provided a means of access to below any place of
importance in the city. Teams of assassins or shock troops could
be moved through them by a foe adapted to the darkness. They
were a perfect highway for a skaven invasion. The great walls of
Nuln would prove no barrier to them. The watchers on the roof
of the temple of Myrmidia would notice nothing.
The peril to the city was even greater if its own chief magistrate
were in league with the rat-men! The pieces clicked. He knew how
von Halstadt's foes disappeared. They were dragged down into the
depths by the skaven. He would bet anything that a web of access
tunnels existed which gave access to the palaces and walled houses
above. If nothing else, a small enough assassin could gain access
through the sewage channels, gross as that thought was.
The question now was why? Why was von Halstadt doing it?
What did he stand to gain? The demise of his enemies? Perhaps he
was a mutant in league with the forces of darkness. Perhaps he was
mad. Felix asked himself whether he could walk away now, know-
ing what he did. Could he take the offer of a safe job alongside his
brothers and leave the second greatest city of the Empire in the
hands of its enemies?
It was infuriating; there was nothing he could do. No one would
believe him if he accused the chief magistrate. The word of a sewer-
jack against that of the most influential man in the city? And if he
revealed who he really was, that would only get him into deeper
trouble. He was a known revolutionary and an associate of the
dwarf who had slaughtered ten of the Emperor's own elite house-
hold cavalry. No one would be too bothered if the pair of them
disappeared. Perhaps it would be best to let things be. It was only
then, as he came to his decision, that he noticed that the rats had
vanished and the sound of soft padding could be heard behind
him.
'We're being followed, manling,' Gotrek said quietly. 'Several
groups. One behind. Two taking tunnels parallel to us. There's more
up ahead.'
'Followed? By what?' Felix had to force his words out. His throat
felt constricted and his voice was barely louder than a whisper.
'Skaven?'
'Yes. We're going to be ambushed. Our scuttling little friends
should be quieter. Dwarf ears are keen.'
'What can we do?'
'Fight bravely and, if need be, die heroically, manling.'
That's all very well for you - you're a Slayer. The rest of us aren't
quite so keen to get ourselves killed.'
Gotrek glared at him contemptuously. Felix felt the need to find
an excuse for his fear. What if it's an invasion? Someone has to
warn the city. It's our duty. Remember the oath we swore when we
joined the watch.'
He could see this made an impression on the Trollslayer.
Dwarfs were always impressed by talk of duty and of oaths.
'You have a point, manling. At least one of us should get away
and warn the city. Best talk with the others and make up a plan.'
Tzarkual saw that his prey had stopped. They were huddling
together in the passage and talking in low tones. He knew they
were afraid. It had finally dawned on even their dim manbrains
that they were being followed. He knew the righteous fear that the
true skaven warrior inspired in most humans. He had seen the
look of cringing horror in many a human eye. The terrifying
majesty and dignity of the skaven form filled the manthings with
awe.
He stood taller and preened his fur with his tongue. At times,
looking in the polished mirror of his shield, he almost understood
their feelings. There was no denying he cut an impressive figure
even among the regal forms of his fellow high-ranking skaven. It
was only proper that manthings should be suitably impressed by
the master race.
He gestured for his stormvermin to halt. He would allow his
victims a minute's grace to fully savour their fear. He wanted them
to understand the hopelessness of their position. Perhaps he
might even allow them to beg for their lives. Some victims did. He
knew it was a tribute to the impressive bearing he mustered.
'Hostleader. Should we not attack now? Maimslay the man-
things while they are in confusion?' Clawleader Gazat asked.
Tzarkual shook his head. Gazat had showed his true lack of
understanding of the finer points of strategy. He thought it better
to simply attack rather than wait for the correct moment when
their foes were paralysed with fear.
The hostleader twitched his tail indulgently. 'No-no. Let them
know fear. When they spray musk and know hopelessness then we
shall charge-charge.'
Tzarkual could see that Gazat was dubious. Well, let him be.
Soon he would see the superiority of his leader's tactical knowl-
edge for himself.
'Hostleader! They come back to our path.'
'Doubtless they flee in panicked terror. Prepare to meet them
with fixed weapons.' The ledge here was wide enough for two
skaven abreast. The stormvermin took up position, their pole-
arms braced to meet the charge. Tzarkual waited expectantly.
Triumph filled his heart as the terror-struck manthings con-
fronted his elite warriors. So full of fear were they that they did not
even stop their headlong rush. Blind panic drove them to throw
themselves onto the blades.
Surely it was only luck that allowed the sweep of the dwarf's
hatchet to chop though both weapons. Yes, he could see more
clearly now. The dwarf was so scared that he frothed at the mouth
like a clanrat with rabies. He howled fearful prayers to whatever
gods he worshipped. He knew he was doomed.
Still, in his terror he was doing terrible damage, as panic-stricken
brutes often did. One blind swing clove the head of a trooper. The
frantic thrashing of his axe knocked two trusty stormvermin into
the channel of the sewer.
If Tzarkual had not known better he would have sworn that the
skaven had leapt into the filth to avoid the blade. Surely not! A tall
blond-tufted manthing had joined the dwarf. He fought with a cer-
tain precision. A thrust from his shortsword took another skaven in
the throat.
No! This wasn't happening. Four of his best warriors had gone
down and the manthings had not even taken a casualty. The furless
ones had been lucky. He was filled with pride as more brave stor-
mvermin leapt into the fray.
Now, he felt certain that victory would be his. The manthings just
didn't know it. They kept coming. More worthless vermin fell
before their weapons. Tzarkual knew that he had been betrayed!
Instead of elite stormvermin, he had been sent useless clanrats.
Some cunning enemy back in Skavenblight must have arranged it to
discredit him.
It was the only explanation of how two puny surface-dwellers
could chop through half a dozen skaven so-called warriors without
taking a cut. Tzarkual steeled himself to face the foe. He, at least,
was not afraid to face the dwarf's hatchet or the man's sword. He
was a hostleader. He knew no fear.
It was simply excitement that made his tail twitch and his muskg-
lands swell as the dwarf painted the sewer wall with blood with a
flick of the small axe. Tzarkual knew he could take any manthing,
but he decided to hang back as Clawleader Gazat tackled the dwarf.
He wanted to study his foe's fighting style to best advantage.
It was certainly impressive the way that the dwarf caught the fly-
ing skaven by the throat and dashed his brains out against the ledge
floor.
It definitely wasn't terror that made Tzarkual fling himself into
the sewage when he confronted the foaming-mouthed berserker. It
was just that he knew that this was not the correct time to fight. It
would be more elegant to take the foe off guard, by surprise, say,
when they were asleep. Less wasteful of skaven lives too. He would
tell Thanquol this as soon as he had finished his swim.
•
'They were after us, weren't they?' Felix said, glancing around wor-
riedly. He dabbed at some of the blood on his face and inspected
the tips of his fingers distastefully. He was not surprised to learn
that skaven blood was black.
'Don't be foolish, manling. Why would they be after us?'
Felix was getting annoyed at people telling him not to be foolish.
'Well, doesn't it seem odd that we managed to go for two weeks
without meeting a single thing down here, then barely two days
after you kill that skaven we're ambushed? Come to think of it, it's
only one day after I saw von Halstadt at the Golden Hammer. Per-
haps he recognised me.'
Gotrek flicked his hatchet forward. Black blood speckled the
ledge where the droplets fell. 'Manling, he couldn't recognise you.
For a start you were dressed differently. And you were behind the
lantern that Gant shone on him - all he could make out would be
your outline. That's if he saw anything at all. Most likely he was too
busy running.'
It slowly sank in what Gotrek had said. Or rather what he hadn't
said. He hadn't questioned the fact that Felix had seen von Halstadt
at the Golden Hammer.
The other sewerjacks back from inspecting the bodies. 'Good
work, you two,' said Hef. 'You can certainly fight.'
'Might have left us some, though? I thought there was some com-
ing up behind us but they seemed to stop when you two got stuck
in.'
'Probably scared them away.'
'Well, let's take a body and show it to the watch captain. Maybe
they'll believe us this time.'
'Right-o, young Felix. You going to carry it?'
Felix kept his mouth shut as he bent to lift the smelly, furry car-
cass. Even amid the stink of the sewers the smell of the corpse was
offensive. Felix was quite pleased when, halfway back to the watch
station exit, Hef offered to take a turn carrying it.
'And you say that there are rat-men below the city, brother? In the
sewers even?'
Looking around the dining chamber of Otto's house, Felix found
it easy to understand his brother's incredulity. Everything here
seemed solid and safe and unthreatening. The expensive brocade cur-
tains shut out the night just as effectively as the high walls enclosing
the garden shut out the city. The solid teak furniture spoke of wealth
based on a firm foundation of prosperity. The silver cutlery, different
for each course, reflected an ordered world where everything had its
place. Here in his brother's stone-walled house it was hard to recall
details of the nightmare battle he had fought that morning.
'Oh yes.' As he said it he saw again the snarling feral rat-face of the
skaven he had killed. He remembered the bubbles of bloody froth
blowing from its lips. He felt its stinking weight press against his
body as it fell. He forced the memory back and concentrated on the
goblet of fine Parravonian wine his brother had placed before him.
'It seems almost impossible to believe. Even though you do hear
rumours.'
'Rumours, Otto?'
The merchant looked around. He got up and walked around the
chamber, making sure each of the doors was securely closed. His Bre-
tonnian wife, Annabella, had retired to her chambers, leaving the
two men to talk business in private. Otto returned to his seat. His
face was flushed from the wine. Candlelight flickered off little beads
of sweat on his face.
They say that there are mutants in the sewers and goblins and
other monsters.' Felix smiled at his brother's seriousness. Otto was
telling this to a sewerjack as if it were a great secret. 'You may smile,
Felix, but I've talked to folk who swear it's true.'
'Really?' It was hard to keep a note of irony from his voice. Otto
didn't notice it.
'Oh yes, the same folk who swear that there's a great mutant
undertown called the Night Market. They say it's on the edge of the
city. In an abandoned graveyard. It's frequented by followers of cer-
tain depraved cults.'
'Slaanesh worshippers, you mean?'
Otto pursed his lips primly. 'Don't use that word in my home. It's
cursed unlucky and I don't want to attrart the attention of the Dark
Powers. Or their followers.'
'Unlucky or not, these things exist.'
'Enough, brother.'
At first Felix found it hard to believe his brother was serious. He
wondered what Otto would say if he told him that he had once wit-
nessed a Slaaneshi orgy on Geheimnisnacht. Best not to, he decided.
Seeing his brother's serious, fear-filled face he realised quite how
large the gap between them had grown.
Could he really once have been as sheltered as his elder brother,
shivering and fearful at the mention of a dark power about which
he knew not the slightest thing? He had to admit that it was perhaps
possible. He began to understand how the cultists got away with it.
There was a veil of secrecy drawn over the whole subject in polite
society; it wasn't mentioned or discussed. People preferred to
believe, or pretend to believe, that such things as Chaos cults
couldn't exist. If they were mentioned, they didn't want to talk
about them. Everyone abhorred mutants and talked about them
widely.
That was fine. It was easy to pick on visible targets, they provided
a focus on which to vent deep seated unease. But bring up the fact
that normal, supposedly sane folk might be interested in the wor-
ship of the dark ones and a door was slammed in your face.
The playwright Detlef Sierck had been right when he wrote:
'Ours is a land chained by silence; ours is a time when the truth goes
unspoken.' People just didn't want to know.
Why? Felix did not understand. Did they honestly think that pre-
tending a problem did not exist would make it go away? The watch
captain today had looked at the body and could not deny its exis-
tence, even though he had obviously wanted to. He was forced to
report the matter to a higher authority.
A sudden chill ran through Felix when he recalled who had come
to collect the corpse for examination. They were men from the
office of Chief Magistrate von Halstadt. Felix wondered if the body
of the dead skaven would ever be seen again.
Tell me more about von Halstadt,' Felix asked. 'Where does he live?'
Otto seemed glad to change the subject. 'His father was a minor
noble, killed in one of the peasant uprisings in the early seventies.
He studied for the Sigmarite priesthood, but was never ordained.
There were hints of a scandal, something to do with spying on the
nunnery. He is efficient. He's said to keep files on everyone. And his
enemies disappear mysteriously.'
Felix fell silent. A pattern had emerged. He believed he under-
stood what had happened. It would take a little checking though.
He would make a start early tomorrow. 'You say he lives nearby.'
Two streets away. Near the palace, on Emmanuelleplatz.'
'Well, well.' Felix leant back in his chair and yawned expansively.
'Well, brother, it's late and I really must go. I have work tomorrow.'
'Very well.' Otto rang the small bell that sat beside his plate. 'I'll
have Franz bring your cloak.'
T told your predecessor never to come here,' von Halstadt said,
staring at the skaven with barely concealed distaste. He hated it
when anyone else but him entered his filing chamber. The ser-
vants might see you.'
The rat-man met his gaze levelly. There was something about this
one that made von Halstadt nervous. Perhaps it was the greyish fur
or perhaps it was the strange, blind-seeming eyes, but there was
something different about this one. Something scary, almost.
This one is not as the other, manthing. Grey seer this one is.
Magelord in the service of the Thirteen. Contracted to the clan but
not of it. Important I see you. Things went badly with the guards.
Many skaven dead.'
'But my servants-'
'Worry not, foolish manthing - they snoresleep. A simple spell.'
Von Halstadt laid down his file. He marked the place with a
uninked quill and dosed it gently. He let his hand fall near the hilt
of his blade. The touch of it reassured him somewhat. He met the
skaven's stare and dared it to look away. 'I'm unused to being called
"foolish". Do not do so again.'
The skaven smiled. It was not calming. For a second the magis-
trate felt as if it might leap forward and bite him. He kept his hand
on his weapon. With an almost imperceptible shake of its head the
skaven stopped smiling. It twitched its tail.
'Of course. So-sorry. Many apologies, yes. Grieve for the loss of
kin. Cost many warptokens to replace.'
'I accept your apology.' Von Halstadt was reassured. It was
obscurely pleasing that even so monstrous seeming a creature as the
rat-man felt a sense of loss at the death of its relatives. Still, he
found himself longing for the day when he would no longer have
to deal with the skaven and could have them destroyed. He picked
up the file and returned it to its precise place in the proper cabinet.
'The manthings are dangerous to our association. Know your
appearance and can pickchoose you from others. They must not be
allowed to threaten you or us.'
'True.' The thought was worrying. Von Halstadt's enemies were
legion and the slightest hint of scandal would be used against
him. The treacherous sewerjacks would sell that information to
the highest bidder, he felt sure. Their lack of loyalty to the cause of
humanity sickened him. They deserved to die. And to think he had
once felt sorry for them. 'They must die.'
'Yes-yes, and you must show us where to find them.'
That is straightforward enough. I had their watch captain inter-
viewed today.' he opened a new cabinet and pulled out a slim
dossier. 'Here is my file on them.'
'Good-good. Soon they will all die-die.'
*  *  *
Once safely back in the sewer, Grey Seer Thanquol cursed to him-
self. He was tired of dealing with morons like Tzarkual and the
manthing von Halstadt. He would have preferred to have been back
home in his warm burrow in Skavenblight, surrounded by his
breeders and with a few captive humans to run through his maze.
He missed the beautiful rotting aroma of the swamps and he was
worried about the intrigues which might be taking place against
him in his absence. He hated working with the idiot Tzarkual, who
could not even carry out the simple assassination of five manthings
properly.
The thought of the hostleader's chittering excuses made
Thanquol want to bite his own tail with anger. By the Thirteen, it
was true! If you wanted a bone gnawed properly you had to gnaw it
yourself. No sense entrusting vital tasks to the likes of the useless
hostleader.
Still, his masters had assigned him to Tzarkual's clan and he was
obliged by the binding oaths of his order to implement and expe-
dite their plans. And this one was sound. It resounded to Clan
Skab's credit in the Great Game being played back in Skavenblight.
He could see that, foolish though he was, von Halstadt represented
a valuable agent to have in place. Of all the humans he had ever
met, the spymaster thought most like a skaven - a very stupid
skaven, admittedly, but still a skaven. He was easy to manipulate
due to his strange jealousy of, and attraction to, the breeder
Emmanuelle, prepared to believe anything so long as it was con-
nected to her. Imagine thinking that the skaven use the city's rats as
spies, foolish manthing!
However, von Halstadt had proven useful in removing those who
might prove to be a threat to the long-term plans of the Thirteen
and he was an adroit and effective collector of the warpstone so nec-
essary for the continued research plans of the seers.
Yes-yes, it would be wise to resist the urge to slay the manthing. He
was more useful alive than dead, at least until the Great Day came
and humanity writhed beneath the talons of the skaven once more.
Thanquol easily deciphered the strange scratchmarks humans
called writing. He had trained all his life for this. The study of
mankind and its arts were his particular forte. Von Halstadt had
thoughtfully attached the maps showing the closest sewers to the
victim's dwellings. The manthing was not entirely incompetent.
How convenient! Two of the manthings dwelled together in an
easily accessible place. He would start with them.
'Come-come, Boneripper. I have work for you this night,'
Thanquol squeaked.
The rat-ogre growled its assent from the shadows. Enormous
claws slid smoothly from their sheaths at the prospect of food.
Hef was lurching drunkenly down the muddy side-street when he
heard the sounds of a struggle coming from the hovel which he
shared with Gilda and his brother. He knew he shouldn't have
stayed in the tavern for that last pint with Gotrek. If Big Jax and his
men had returned for vengeance while he was away, he would never
forgive himself.
The hook knife felt cool and reassuring in his hand. He wished
he were more sober, but that was not to be helped. He broke into a
trot and almost immediately tripped over a pile of rotting garbage
in the path. At night, without street lighting the New Quarter was a
death-trap.
He picked himself up and set off more carefully along the lane.
As he recalled there was an open sewer near here and it wouldn't do
to fall in. He heard Gilda scream and all thought of caution van-
ished when the scream ended in a moan of pain, He ran, scrabbling
over the garbage, knocking over a pile of muck. He knew that no
one else but him would answer a scream for help in Cheap Street.
It was that sort of area.
Flames started to leap skyward over the hovel. Someone must
have knocked over a lamp in the struggle. He heard a feral snarl
from within the hut. Maybe Jax had brought his tame war-dogs, as
he had threatened. Hef covered the open ground near the entrance
in one final spurt. By the light of the flames flickering within he
could see that the door had been ripped off its hinges.
Something moved within. His brother met him at the door. Spi-
der opened his mouth and tried to speak. Blood gushed forth. Hef
caught him as he fell forward. As his arms met round his brother's
back, he felt the hole and the great soft mass of the lungs pumping
though it. Spider moaned and was still.
It was a nightmare. He had returned home and his home was in
flames. His brother was dead. No, that could not be. He and Spider
had been inseparable since they could walk. They had served on the
same fishing boat, stolen the same money, ran off together to the
same city, lived with the same girl. They had the same life. If Spider
was dead, then...
Hef stood absolutely still. Tears streamed down his face as the
monstrous shape emerged from the ruins of the burning hut and
loomed over him. The last thing he heard was the sound of chitter-
ing from behind him.
* * *
Felix was up bright and early. He made his way down the muddy
streets of the New Quarter, ignoring the pall of smoke that rose
from the shantytown near Cheap Street. Another fire, he supposed.
Well, he had been lucky, the wind had not fanned the flames in the
direction of Frau Zorin's tenement. If they had, he might have died
in his sleep. And he couldn't afford to die just now. He still had
things to do.
He turned left down Rotten Row and hit the cobbled streets of
Commercial Way. Coaches clattered past as merchants made their
way to the coffee houses before starting business for the day. He
found his way to the Hall of Archives and made his way to the divi-
sion of the planning office with responsibility for sewers.
He knew he would find what he needed there. Three quarters of
an hour, much browsing through ancient, dust-covered files and
plans, two threats and one bribe later, he had proven himself to be
correct. Pleased with himself, Felix made his way to the watch
house.
They were instantly assigned to help out the rest of the watch in
the area that had burned: burying the dead, searching the rubble for
the living. They marched up to the shantytown to take a look. The
fire had ripped through many hovels, the burned and the disfigured
dead were everywhere. A little boy, his face blackened by soot, sat
near an old woman who whimpered quietly to herself.
'What happened here, son?' Felix asked.
'It was the rat-daemon what did it,' the boy said. 'I saw it myself.
It killed the men who lived there and carried them below to feast.
Ma says it'll come for me next if I don't behave.'
Felix exchanged looks with Gotrek. Savage interest was evident in
the Trollslayer's one good eye.
There's no such thing as rat-daemons, lad. Don't lie to us - we're
with the watch.'
'There is too. I saw it with my own eyes. It was taller than you and
heavier than that big one-eyed dwarf. It was led by a smaller rat-
man with grey skin and horns on its head.'
'Did anyone else see it?'
'Don't know. I hid. I thought they might take me too.'
Felix shook his head and went to check the ruins of Hef and Spi-
der's hut. There was little left of the pitiful building save the
burned-out remains and the charred corpse of a woman.
'No sign of Hef or Spider?'
Gotrek shook his head and pointed with his toe to something
grey and sharp lying in the ashes. That's Hef s knife.'
Felix bent and picked it up. The metal was still warm from lying
in the embers. Felix looked at the corpse. The smell of burnt meat
filled his nostrils.
'Gilda?' said Felix.
Felix shook his head. Sorrow and rage filled him. He had liked
the brothers. They had been good men. Now he wanted vengeance.
'You were an engineer once, Gotrek. Tell me what these mean.'
Felix ignored the Trollslayer's incredulous look. He cleared a
space on the table in the watchroom and spread out the charts. Rudi
watched curiously as he smoothed the cracked old parchment flat
and weighed down each corner with an empty tea mug.
The Slayer gave his attention back to the papers. 'These are charts
of the sewers, manling. Dwarf-made plans of the Old Quarter.'
That's correct. They show the area beneath Chief Magistrate von
Halstadt's mansion. If you look closely, you'll discover that it's not
too far from the place where Gant was killed. I'd also bet if we
looked we'd find a way up from the sewers to his house.'
A frown creased Rudi's low brow. 'You're suggesting that we break
into Fritz von Halstadt's house! We'll be hung if we're caught. We
might even lose our jobs!'
That would be a pity. What do you say, are you in? Rudi?'
'I don't know...'
'Gotrek?'
'Yes, manling - with one provision.'
'What's that?'
'If von Halstadt is the Chaos worshipping, skaven-loving,
snotling-fondler we saw in the sewer then we kill him.'
An appalled silence hung over the chamber. The import of the
Trollslayer's words sunk into their brains. Felix felt his mouth go
dry. What the dwarf was suggesting was murder, pure and simple.
No, he decided, thinking of Gant, and the dead in the New Quar-
ter, it wasn't murder, it was justice. He'd go along with that. 'Fine.'
There's no backing out then. Rudi?' The bald-headed man
looked shocked. His face was pale and fear was in his eyes.
'You don't know what you're suggesting.'
'Are you coming with us or not?' Rudi didn't answer for a second.
Yes,' he said at last. 'I'll come. I just hope you're wrong, that's all.'
'I'm not,' Felix said.
That's what I'm afraid of
The sewers had never seemed so ominous to Felix. Shadows danced
away from the lantern light. Every time he heard Rudi's heavy tread
behind him, he had to fight the urge to look around. The sound of
the Slayer continually tapping the walls with his hatchet blade was
getting on his nerves. He knew that Gotrek was only doing it to see
if he could find a hollow area but that did not make it any easier to
take.
Something was out there. He knew that now. Something had
killed Hef and Spider, and their girl too, and it would surely kill the
rest of them if they let it. It was the not knowing that was so terri-
fying. Not knowing what it was that hunted them. Not really
knowing why. Not knowing how many skaven might appear, nor
what daemonic henchmen they might have. The brothers had been
formidable fighters and they were gone.
Worse, half of the Cheap Street shantytown had gone with them.
Whatever dark thing sought them had no qualms about killing a lot
of people to get the ones it wanted. He asked himself why he had
not simply fled the city-state.
He could be on the road even now, not creeping about in this
dark, smelly stinkhole. Why did he have to be cursed with this urge
to interfere in what was really none of his business?
He already knew the answer. He had to take a stand somewhere,
for something. Because if he did not, he would be exactly like his
brother, Otto, and all the others like him, pretending that he did
not know what was going on; making deals with the Darkness so
that it would leave him alone; pretending all was right with the
world when he knew that it wasn't.
Knowing that something was wrong meant that he had to do
something about it, even if the only reason for doing it was to keep
his self-image intact and allow him to feel superior to those he
despised. And if that made him feel a little more like the heroes he
used to read about when he was young, well, so much the better.
Thinking about his reasons kept his mind occupied and allowed
him to forget his fears. He made himself concentrate on what he
knew. The only real lead he had was that he knew that the head of
the city's secret police was in league with the skaven. He had seen it
with his own eyes. He did not know why such a thing should be; he
only knew that it was so. And that it should be stopped.
'Stop daydreaming, manling. We've been down here for hours
and we still haven't found this secret entrance of yours. It'll soon be
dark up above and we're still no further forward.' Felix gave his atten-
tion back to scanning the walls. From up ahead the sound of Gotrek
tapping the brickwork with the blade of his hatchet continued.
*  *  *
Thanquol stared around the darkened room. He felt exposed
here in the surface world, so high above the ground. He gazed out
through the single window and then looked at the straw pallet.
Boneripper stood hunched near the doorway, flexing his great
claws.
They had stood here in the dark for nearly two hours and still
there was no sign of their prey. He lashed his tail in frustration.
Where was the stupid manthing? Why wasn't he home in bed
where he should be? They were all the same, frittering away their
time in drunkenness and debauchery. They deserved to be replaced
by the Master Race. He swore that he would make this particular
manthing pay for wasting a grey seer's valuable time.
He didn't have any more time to waste. He had to meet with von
Halstadt and check on the arrangements that had been made for the
countess's homecoming ball. Soon it would be time to reveal to
him that Emmanuelle's guest, the Emperor's own brother-in-law,
was secretly a mutant and worse yet, the countess's latest lover.
The fact that neither of these things were true was not in the
slightest bit important. What was important was that when von
Halstadt had the graf kidnapped and tortured, word of it would be
released. War would come between Nuln and the rest of the
Empire. The Emperor could not stand for the insult of his own
brother-in-law being tortured by the Elector's secret police. Civil
war would erupt. The greatest kingdom of mankind would be
thrown into anarchy. The power of the skaven would grow.
The thought so excited Thanquol that he had to take some pow-
dered warpstone snuff to calm his nerves. The drug bubbled into
his brain and filled him with delightful visions of torture, blood-
shed and agony.
The sound of footsteps coming up the stairs brought him out of
his reverie. He nodded to Boneripper. There was a tentative knock
on the door. 'Herr Jaeger, it's me, Frau Zorin. Rent time!'
Before Thanquol could countermand him, Boneripper threw
open the door and dragged the old woman inside.
'Herr Jaeger, there's no need to be so rough!' They were Frau
Zorin's last words before Boneripper tore her throat out.
Well, at least he wouldn't have to feed the rat-ogre for another
three hours, thought the grey seer. He waited for Boneripper to fin-
ish his meal.
'Come-come, we have business elsewhere,' he told him. They
headed for the sewers and their meeting with von Halstadt.
*  *  *
'Success, manling!' Gotrek exclaimed, and tapped again to make
sure. He nodded his head smugly. 'I've found the passage or my
mother was a troll!'
I wouldn't bet against that, thought Felix, but kept the thought to
himself. He watched as the Slayer set down his hatchet and began
to run his fingers around the brickwork.
'Nice bit of work this. Well concealed. Probably dwarf, I'd say. No
wonder I missed it the other day. The git must have paid a dwarf
crew to dig his bolt-tunnel and then sworn them to secrecy. Now if
I'm right there should be-'
His stubby powerful fingers pushed against a single brick. It sank
into the wall. There came a quiet grinding sound, as of perfectly bal-
anced counterweights shifting. A section of the wall slid back. Felix
saw a small vestibule and a metal ladder leading up. Gotrek turned
and smiled, revealing his missing teeth. He looked genuinely
pleased. Very nice work indeed. Bugger must have outdistanced me,
turned that corner and ducked in. No wonder I couldn't find him.
My eyes were still stinging from the gas, too.'
There's no need to make excuses, Gotrek,' Felix said.
'No excuse, manling. I just want-'
'Are we going to stand here all night, young Felix, or are you
going to go up and take a look around?' Rudi interrupted.
'Me?'
'Well, all this was your idea.' Felix saw the unease written on
Rudi's face. The big man was scared by the prospect of burgling
so important a citizen's home. Not surprisingly, thought Felix.
He's a watchman. He's spent the last ten years catching criminals,
not being one.
Are you going to do it, manling, or should I?' The thought of the
Trollslayer clumping around upstairs galvanised Felix into action.
He remembered Otto's words about there being Templars of the
White Wolf on guard above. He didn't relish the prospect of being
discovered by them.
'I'll take a look first,' he said, 'and I'll let you know if it's safe.'
Felix held his breath and glanced around. The ladder emerged in
another small chamber with a single door. This led out into a large
wine cellar.
Looking back, Felix saw that the door was attached to a wine
rack, so that when it was closed it was virtually invisible. Felix
checked a label on one of the bottles. He blew away dust to
reveal the emblem of one of the best Parravonian vineyards, Des-
ghulles.
'Someone has expensive tastes,' he told himself. He turned
swiftly reaching for his sword when he heard the ladder creak
behind him. Gotrek's head poked round the edge of the door-
way.
'Don't wet yourself, manling, it's me,' he said. Rudi emerged
from behind him. 'Right, let's check the house and see if we can
find our friend, the chief magistrate.'
'Not much noise above. The place sounds empty.'
'Let's hope so.'
'I'll stay here,' Rudi said. 'And make sure your line of retreat is
covered.'
Felix shrugged. It was probably better than having the big man
blundering about up above. 'You do that.'
Felix made his way cautiously to the foot of the stairs, keeping
his lantern to the narrowest aperture so that only the faintest
glimmer of light showed.
'I told you so: the house is empty,' Gotrek said.
Felix had to admit it looked like the dwarf was right. Where
were the White Wolf guards? Where were the servants?
'Guards are most likely at the gatehouse. But where are the ser-
vants? A place this size should have some.'
'You'd know about that, I suppose.'
'Yes.'
Felix gently put his foot on the stairs. A shiver ran down his
spine as it creaked under his weight. He paused and held his
breath. No one came to investigate.
'Why are you being so quiet, manling? There's no one here.'
'I don't know. Maybe it's just because it's not my house. I feel
like a criminal. Why are you whispering?'
'You are being a criminal. So am I. Let's search this place and
see what we can find. You take upstairs. I'll take below.'
It was only after he padded off near silently that Felix noticed
that Gotrek was moving stealthily too. Felix moved on up the
stairs, hoping that they would not creak.
In the bedroom, Felix closed the aperture of his lantern com-
pletely before sliding aside a curtain and looking outside. He
glanced down into a large walled courtyard and he could see
over the high walls into the street beyond. A large gate opened
into the courtyard. On the left of the square was a stable and
coach-house; on the right was a small barracks and a privy for
the servants. Old oak trees lined the square. There were sentries:
tall blond men in full armour, white wolf pelts draped round
their shoulders. One paced from the gatehouse across the court-
yard.
For a moment Felix feared that the man might be coming inside,
but he soon turned off and headed towards a small barracks next to
the stables. Slowly Felix let the curtain slide back into place and then
he allowed himself to exhale.
No, it wouldn't do to get caught here. The White Wolves had a
reputation for ferocity that equalled that of a Slayer, and there were at
least half a dozen of them out there.
The most appropriate thing to do when he found the locked door
was to force it. He jimmied it open with the blade of his shortsword
and went in. He found himself in a place that reminded him of the
ledger hall in his father's warehouse back in Altdorf.
It was a big room dominated by an oak desk large enough to hold
a party on. The walls were lined with filing boxes, hundreds and hun-
dreds of them. He opened one at random and pulled out a thick
sheaf of papers written in a precise hand. Glancing through it, he
came upon the name of the countess and notes referring to several of
her better-known lovers. There was an extensive section dealing with
suspected mutation in her family. Many sources were quoted.
What drew Felix's attention were the references to 'our most spe-
cial source' and 'our friends down below'. He picked up another file
and went through it. There were similar notes. One referred to the
need for a certain Slazinger to disappear. The files were sorted alpha-
betically. He couldn't resist it. He sought out the one on the Jaeger
family. After finding one concerning a family of bakers on Cake Street
who shared the same name, he got his own family file on the second
try.
Felix felt his stomach lurch when he came across references to the
merchant house of Jaeger and Sons. The file remarked on how
amenable his brother Otto was and noted that he was a sound man
who gave generously to the elector's fund for the maintenance of civil
order. As he flipped the page he saw his own name mentioned. He
read on.
Thanquol noticed that the secret entrance to von Halstadt's had
been disturbed almost as soon as he entered. There was a strange
manscent in the air of the chamber at the foot of the ladder. Several
manscents in fact, and something that smelled like dwarf.
Fool-fool! he cursed inside, gnawing at the tip of his tail. The spy-
master had been discovered. It didn't take the application of a mind
as clever as Thanquol's to work out by whom. He had two man-
things and a dwarf left to kill.
Well, the manthings had saved him the bother of tracking them
down. Their desire to meddle in business that was not theirs would
prove to be their undoing.
He nodded to Boneripper and chittered his instructions. The lad-
der groaned under the weight of the rat-ogre. It swarmed up the
rungs, as agile as an ape.
Felix shook his head. He was referred to as a spendthrift younger
son who had vanished under mysterious circumstances. There was
a line devoted to his duel with Krassner and a hastily scribbled
memo in pencil to the effect that a further investigation should be
conducted.
Well, perhaps there were worse things to be than the black sheep
of the Jaeger family. Perhaps he should show Gotrek. Maybe there
was something in the files about the Slayer too. He was just about
to look when he heard the door open down below.
Damn, he thought, closing the chamber door. He'd have to wait.
Von Halstadt knew he was running late. He hoped the skaven was
too. He deplored giving the wrong impression even to a brute like
the skaven. But Emmanuelle was due back tomorrow and he
wanted every little detail of her household to be perfect.
He imagined the smile with which she would reward his dili-
gence and knew that all his care had been worthwhile. Even if he
had been forced to waste fifteen minutes punishing that young foot-
man for his clumsiness in setting the paintings. The flogging had
left the magistrate tired and sweaty, and in need of a bath.
He picked up a house lantern and lit it. The gloom rushed away
from him. Von Halstadt was going to call a servant to draw some
water when he recalled that he had given them all the night off
because the skaven was coming. He would have to forego the plea-
sure of a wash until later. The skaven's tidings were more important.
Before departing last night he had intimated that his agents were
about to ferret out a particularly important mutant plot. Von Hal-
stadt had to admit he was far more concerned with the
assassination attempt on the sewerjacks. He knew that Hef and Spi-
der were dead. His agents had reported on the fire in Cheap Street.
That had been a neat bit of work, disposing of two traitors and
half a hundred riffraff at the same time. Come to think of it, perhaps
the rat-man had inadvertently provided a solution to another prob-
lem. Perhaps he could have fires set across the New Quarter. That
would certainly cut down on the numbers of mutant-worshipping
scum who dwelled there.
The thought of burning the dregs of society out of their festering
sinkhole of vice warmed the cockles of his heart. He took the stairs
two at a time and rushed down the corridor to his filing room. But
his heart sank when he saw the door had been forced. Anger filled
him. Someone had desecrated his sanctum. After Emmanuelle, his
beloved files were the most important thing in his life. If someone
had harmed a page of them...
He drew his sword and pushed the door open with his foot. A
lantern shone in his face.
'Good evening, von Halstadt,' a cultured voice said. 'I think you
and I have some business.'
As the chief magistrate's eyes grew accustomed to the illumina-
tion he recognised the face of the young man he had seen with Otto
Jaeger the other night. 'Who are you, whelp?' he asked.
'My name is Felix Jaeger. I am the man who is going to kill you.'
Rudi had never seen so much wine before. It was everywhere in the
cellar: old bottles covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs,
newer ones with only the slightest gilding of dirt. There was so
much of it he wondered how any one man could drink it all. Maybe
if he had plenty of guests, he supposed.
What was that noise? Probably nothing. It would be best to pre-
tend there was nothing there.
Ever since they had found the rat-man in the sewers, nothing had
gone right. Perhaps he could hide. But there was no place into
which he could squeeze his large frame.
He should go back to the top of the ladder and take a look. He
was sure he had heard the rungs of the metal ladder creak. Yes, he
should.
He swallowed and tried to make himself move back to the hid-
den niche. His limbs responded slowly. It was as if all strength had
been drained out of them. His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears.
It raced like he had just run a mile.
He realised that he had been holding his breath, and let it out in
a long sigh. The sound seemed unnaturally loud in the silence. He
wished Gotrek or even that cocky young snob Felix would come
back. He didn't like being here on his own, in the basement of a
powerful noble whose wealth and influence he could hardly imag-
ine.
It was ridiculous, he told himself. He'd spent nearly fifteen years,
man and boy, in the sewers, hunting mutants and monsters in the
dark. He shouldn't be frightened. Ah, but it had been different then.
He had been younger and he'd been with friends and comrades, Gant
and the brothers and the others now dead or gone.
The last few days had truly shaken him. The solid foundations of
his life had vanished. He was alone: no wife, no children. His last
friends had vanished or died. And if young Felix was right, the order
that he had sworn to protect, the city's rulers who he was pledged to
defend against all enemies, were the enemy. Life didn't make sense
any more.
Wait! There was definitely something moving inside the niche.
Something heavy had stealthily pulled itself over the lip of the sink-
hole. It was here in the cellar.
'Who's there?' Rudi asked. His voice sounded weak and strange to
him. It was the voice of a stranger. The soft padding footfalls came
closer.
His lantern revealed the shape as it emerged into the wine cellar. It
was huge, a head taller than him and perhaps twice as heavy. Great
muscles bulged under its ruddy fur; long daws slid from the sheaths
in its fingertips. Its face was a mixture of rat and wolf. A chilling,
malign intelligence burned in its pink, beady little eyes.
Rudi raised his club to defend himself, but it was on him with one
leap, startlingly swift for so large a creature. Pain flared through Rudi's
weapon arm as its great claws bit into the flesh of his wrist. He opened
his mouth to scream. He looked up into the pink eyes of death. He felt
the breath of the monster on him. It smelled of blood and fresh meat.
'Don't be foolish, young man,' Fritz von Halstadt said. As he spoke,
he put his hand on the hilt of his longsword. He was confident. He
was a formidable swordsman and his opponent had only a short stab-
bing blade. 'One shout and I'll have six Knights of the White Wolf in
here. They'll hand me your head.'
'Perhaps they'll be interested in the fact that you consort with
skaven and keep a ledger of your dealings with them.'
Felix's words chilled von Halstadt to the bone. He didn't know
whether the grey seer was in the house already or about to arrive. He
couldn't risk summoning the knights if that was the case. They were
reassuringly anti-mutant but their zeal also extended to dealing with
the likes of the skaven.
'You don't know what you're talking about, boy!' the magistrate
spat. His blade rung as he pulled it from the scabbard. .
'I'm afraid I do. You see, I saw you in the sewers the other day. I saw
you with my own eyes. I nearly didn't believe them when I saw you
again in the Golden Hammer.'
The young man seemed certain. There would be no reasoning
with him, he would have to die. Von Halstadt let his blade point
to the floor as he moved closer. He let his shoulders slump in
defeat.
'How did you know?'
'I'm a sewerjack.'
'You can't be. Sewerjacks don't eat at the Golden Hammer. Not
in the company of Otto Jaeg...' As he spoke the words, realisation
dawned on von Halstadt. Felix Jaeger, Otto Jaeger. The family
black sheep. He knew that had been worth looking into.
'What do you want, boy? Money? Preferment? I can arrange for
either but it will take time.' He edged ever closer. The young man
had relaxed a little, seeing how cowed he had become. Soon it
would be time to strike.
'No, I think I want your head.'
Even as Felix spoke, von Halstadt struck, serpent-swift. To his
surprise the young man parried his blow. Steel sparked where the
blades met. Felix lashed out with his foot catching von Halstadt
on the shin. Pain flared in his leg. He only just managed to leap
back out of the way as the younger man thrust. He knew he had
to keep his distance, to use his longer blade to advantage.
They circled and wheeled, moving with the precision of masters
as they sought out openings. Blades wheeled and glittered in the
shadows of the two lanterns. They moved too fast for the eye to
follow, danced with a life of their own, seeking holes in the other's
defences. Von Halstadt allowed himself a snarl of satisfaction as
he pinked Jaeger's arm. It turned into a smile as he cut open a
nasty gash above the young man's eye.
Soon blood would drip down, blinding him. Both breathed
hard now. But Fritz von Halstadt knew that he would win this
duel. He could sense it. He would fight defensively for the
moment. It was simply a matter of waiting.
Thanquol heard the noise upstairs. It sounded like a dance was
taking place. Heavy boots slammed into the stone floor. Well-well,
he thought, it was fortunate that he had arrived when he did. It
would seem that von Halstadt's enemies had tracked him to his
lair and were even now in the process of assassinating him.
Assassination had a long and honourable history in skaven pol-
itics, and Thanquol was tempted to let things run their course. It
would gratify his sense of petty malice to let the manthing die.
Pleasing though the thought was, he couldn't allow himself the
pleasure. It would interfere too much with the great plan.
He kicked Boneripper. The rat-ogre raised its bloody muzzle
from the remnants of its meal. It growled at him. Thanquol glared
at it, letting his slave feel his will. Slowly the rat-ogre rose. They
climbed the stairs out of the cellar towards the battle above.
¦
Felix was forced to admit that perhaps this had not been such a
good idea after all. He blamed too much watching the plays of
Detlef Sierck as a youth. He had always wanted to play out one of
those melodramatic scenes where the hero confronts the scheming
villain.
Unfortunately things weren't quite going according to script. It
was the story of his life. His arms burned with fatigue and the pain
of the wound von Halstadt had inflicted. He jerked his head quickly
to one side to shake off the blood running down his forehead, a
risky move against a swordsman as skilled as his opponent.
Red droplets splattered onto the desktop. Felix was relieved
that von Halstadt hadn't been quite swift enough to take advan-
tage of the opening. His breathing was coming swift and
laboured. It sounded like a bellows. Pain interfered with the
smooth flow of his movements.
Von Halstadt's long blade seemed to be everywhere. It was the
sword that made the difference. Felix believed that had the blades
been of equal length he would just have been the nobleman's supe-
rior. But they were not and it was killing him.
'Hurry-hurry! ' Thanquol ordered Boneripper as they ran towards
the bottom of the stairs. The fight above was still going on but now
that he had decided to save his pawn he didn't want to take the
chance of fate intervening.
An accident at this stage would be most annoying. Boneripper let
out a little moan and stopped so suddenly that Thanquol ran into
the solid wall of his back and bounced. The pain in his snout was
considerable. The grey seer glanced around his pet. He saw why
Boneripper had halted.
A dwarf stood there, blocking the way to the stairs. He was mas-
sive and his fur was strangely crested. In one hand he held an
enormous battle-axe. He, too, looked as if he had been racing to
get up the steps and intervene in the ongoing fight. He, too,
looked astonished to discover there was another in the house.
'Bloody palaces!' he grumbled. 'You never know who you'll meet
in them.'
'Die-die, foolish dwarfthing,' chittered Thanquol. 'Bonerip-per!
Kill! Kill!'
Boneripper surged forward, claws extended. He loomed up over
the dwarf, a terrifying daemonic apparition, a living tribute to the
fearsome imaginations of the sorcerer-scientists of Clan Moulder. It
would not have surprised Thanquol if the dwarf, too, was paralysed
with fear by the very sight of him, as the others had been.
'Chew on this,' the dwarf said.
Brains splattered everywhere as the axe clove Boneripper's head
in two. Thanquol found himself confronting an irate Trollslayer.
The musk of fear sprayed as he reached into his pouch for a
weapon. Then, deciding discretion was the better part of valour, he
turned and scutded off. To his relief the dwarf did not follow, but
raced up the staircase. Thanquol headed for the sewers, swearing
that if it took him a lifetime, he'd make that dwarf pay.
Both men heard the noise from below. It sounded like an immense
tree had crashed to the ground. Felix saw von Halstadt's eyes flicker
to the window. He knew this would be his only chance. Throwing
caution to the wind he dived straight at the nobleman, all defences
down. Momentarily he expected to feel von Halstadt's blade bite
into his chest. The split-second of distraction proved almost
enough. Too late, his opponent tried to bring his blade around.
Felix was already within the sweep. It bit into his side as his own
shortsword tore up through von Halstadt's stomach, under his ribs
and into the heart. With a gurgle, the chief magistrate died. Agony
seared Felix's brain and he fell.
'Wake up, manling. This is no time to be lying around.'
Felix felt water splash over his face. He coughed and spluttered
and shook his head.
'What the-'
'We'd better get out of here before the White Wolves arrive.'
'Leave me alone.' Felix just wanted to lie there. 'You go and fight
them. You always wanted to die heroically.' Gotrek shuffled his feet
and looked embarrassed. 'I can't, manling. I'm a Slayer. I'm sup-
posed to die honourably. If we're caught now folk might think we
were committing a burglary.'
'So?'
Theft brings disgrace. I'm trying to atone for my disgrace.'
'I can imagine some worse crimes, like drowning a dying man,
for instance.'
'You're not dying, manling. That's barely a scratch.'
'Well, if we must.' Felix pulled himself to his feet. He looked
around at the files. It occurred to him that the information here
would be worth a fortune to the right person. Even a small selection
of what was here would be invaluable. The possibilities for black-
mail and extortion were endless.
He looked at the Slayer and remembered what he had said of
theft. Gotrek wouldn't condone him taking the papers. Even if he
would, Felix decided he could not take them. It was corrupt, the life
work of a maniac like von Halstadt. Contained in those papers were
things that could ruin men's lives. There were too many secrets
already in Nuln. These represented too much power to fall into any-
body's hands. He took the lanterns and poured their oil over the
filing cases. Then he set them alight.
Running downstairs with the smell of burning paper filling his
nostrils, Felix felt oddly free. He realised that he would not be going
to work with Otto after all, and that pleased him tremendously.
GUTTER RUNNERS
'Needless to say, we could not tell the authorities the
whole truth of our encounter with the skaven, for
in doing so we would implicate ourselves in the murder
of a high official of the court of the Countess
Emmanuelle. And murder, no matter how deserving the
victim, is a capital crime.
'We were dismissed from service and forced to seek
alternate employment. As luck would have it, during a
drunken spree in one of the less salubrious quarters of
the city, we happened upon a tavern, the owner of which
had been a companion of the Slayer's in his mercenary
days. We were employed to eject undesirables from the
bar, and believe me when I tell you that people had to
be very undesirable indeed to warrant being thrown out of
the Blind Pig.
The work was hard, violent and unrewarding but at
least I thought we were safe from the skaven. Of course,
as was so often the case, I was wrong. For it seemed that
one of them at least had not forgotten us and was plot-
ting revenge...'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
Felix Jaeger ducked the drunken mercenary's punch. The brass-
knuckled fist hurtled by his ear and hit the doorjamb, sending
splinters of wood flying. Felix jabbed forward with his knee, catch-
ing the mercenary in the groin. The man moaned in pain and bent
over. Felix caught him around the neck and tugged him towards the
swing doors. The drunk barely resisted. He was too busy throwing
up stale wine. Felix booted the door open, then pushed the merce-
nary out, propelling him on his way with a hard kick to the
backside. The mercenary rolled in the dirt of Commerce Street,
clutching his groin, tears dribbling from his eyes, his mouth open
in a rictus of pain.
Felix rubbed his hands together ostentatiously before turning
to go back into the bar. He was all too aware of the eyes watching
him from beyond every pool of torchlight. At this time of night,
Commerce Street was full of bravos, street-girls and hired muscle.
Keeping up his reputation for toughness was plain common sense.
It reduced his chances of taking a knife in the back when he wan-
dered the streets at night.
What a life, he thought. If anybody had told him a year ago that
he would be working as a bouncer in the roughest bar in Nuln, he
would have laughed at them. He would have said he was a scholar,
a poet and a gentleman, not some barroom brawler. He would have
almost preferred being back in the sewer watch to this.
Things change, he told himself, pushing his way back into the
crowded bar. Things certainly change.
The stink of stale sweat and cheap perfume slapped him in the
face. He squinted as his vision adjusted to the gloomy, lantern-lit
interior of the Blind Pig. For a moment he was aware that all the
eyes in the place were on him. He scowled, in what he hoped was a
fearsome manner, glaring around in exactly the fashion Gotrek did.
From behind the bar, big Heinz, the tavern owner, gave a wink of
approval for the way in which Felix had dealt with the drunk, then
returned to working the pumps.
Felix liked Heinz. He was grateful to him as well. The big man
was a former comrade from Gotrek's mercenary days. He was the
only man in Nuln who had offered them a job after they had been
dishonourably discharged from the sewer watch.
Now that was a new low, Felix thought. He and Gotrek were the
only two warriors ever to be kicked out of the sewer watch in all its
long and sordid history. In fact they had been lucky to escape a
stretch in the Iron Tower, Countess Emmanuelle's infamous prison.
Gotrek had called the watch captain a corrupt, incompetent
snotling fondler when the man had refused to take their report of
skaven in the sewers seriously. To make matters worse, the dwarf
had broken the man's jaw when he had ordered the pair of them
horsewhipped.
Felix winced. He still had some half-faded bruises from the ensu-
ing brawl. They had fought against half of the watch station before
being bludgeoned unconscious. He remembered waking up in the
squalid cell the morning after. It was just as well his brother Otto
had got them out, wishing to hush up any possible scandal that
might blacken the Jaeger family name.
Otto had wanted the pair of them to leave town, but Gotrek
insisted that they stay. He was not going to be run out of town
like some common criminal, particularly not when a skaven wiz-
ard was still at large and doubtless plotting some terrible crime.
The Trollslayer sensed an opportunity to confront the forces of
darkness in all their evil splendour and he was not going to be
robbed of his chance of a mighty death in battle against them.
And bound by his old oath, Felix had to remain with the dwarf
and record that doom for posterity.
Some mighty death, Felix thought sourly. He could see Gotrek
now, huddled in a corner with a group of dwarfish warriors, wait-
ing to start his shift. His enormous crest of dyed orange hair rose
over the crowd. His hugely muscular figure hunched forward over
the table. The dwarfs slugged back their beer from huge tankards,
growling and tugging at their beards, and muttering something in
their harsh, flinty tongue. Doubtless they were remembering
some old slight to their people or working through the long list
of the grudges they had to avenge. Or maybe they were just
remembering the good old days when beer was a copper piece a
flagon, and men showed the Elder Races proper respect.
Felix shook his head. Whatever the conversation was about, the
Trollslayer was thoroughly engrossed. He had not even noticed the
fight. That in itself was unusual, for the dwarf lived to fight as other
folk lived to eat or sleep.
Felix continued his circuit of the tavern, taking in every table
with a casual sidelong glance. The long, low hall was packed.
Every beer-stained table was crowded. On one, a semi-naked
Estalian dancing girl whirled and pranced while a group of
drunken halberdiers threw silver and encouraged her to remove
the rest of her clothes. Street-girls led staggering soldiers to dark
alcoves in the far wall. The commotion from the bar drowned out
the gasps and moans and the clink of gold changing hands.
One whole long table was taken up by a group of Kislevite
horse archers, guards for some incoming caravan from the north.
They roared out drinking songs concerning nothing but horses
and women, and sometimes an obscene combination of both,
while downing huge quantities of Heinz's home-distilled potato
vodka.
There was something about them that made Felix uneasy. The
Kislevites were men apart, bred under a colder sun in a harsher
land, born only to ride and fight. When one of them rose from the
table to go to the privy, his rolling, bow-legged walk told Felix that
here was a horseman born. The warrior kept his hand near his
long-bladed knife - for at no time was a man more vulnerable
than when standing outside in the dim moonlight, relieving him-
self of half a pint of potato vodka.
Felix grimaced. Half of the thieves, bravos and muscle boys in
Nuln congregated in the Blind Pig. They came to mingle with
newly arrived caravan guards and mercenaries. He knew more
than half of them by name; Heinz had pointed them out to him
on his first night here.
At the corner table sat Murdo Mac Laghlan, the Burglar King
who claimed to be an exiled prince of Albion. He wore the tartan
britches and long moustaches of one of that distant, almost myth-
ical island's hill-warriors. His muscular arms were tattooed in
wood elf patterns. He sat surrounded by a bevy of adoring women,
regaling them with tales of his beautiful mountainous homeland.
Felix knew that Murdo's real name was Heinrik Schmidt and he
had never left Nuln in all his life.
Two tall hook-nosed men of Araby, Tarik and Hakim, sat at
their permanently reserved table. Gold rings glittered on their fin-
gers. Gold earrings shone in their earlobes. Their black leather
jerkins glistened in the torchlight. Long curved swords hung over
the back of their chairs. Every now and again, strangers - some-
times street urchins, sometimes nobles - would come in and take
a seat. Haggling would start, money would change hands and just
as suddenly and mysteriously the visitors would up and leave. A
day later someone would be found floating face down in the Reik.
Rumour had it that the two were the best assassins in Nuln.
Over by the roaring fire at a table all by himself sat Franz Beck-
enhof, who some said was a necromancer and who others claimed
was a charlatan. No one had ever found the courage to sit next to
the skull-faced man and ask, despite the fact that there were always
seats free at his table. He sat there every night, with a leather bound
book in front of him, husbanding his single glass of wine. Old
Heinz never asked him to move along either, even though he took
up space that other, more free-spending customers might use. It
never pays to upset a magician, was Heinz's motto.
Here and there, as out of place as peacocks in a rookery, sat
gilded, slumming nobles, their laughter loud and uneasy. They were
easy to spot by their beautiful clothing and their firm, soft flesh;
upper-class fops out to see their city's dark underbelly. Their body-
guards - generally large, quiet, watchful men with well-used
weapons - were there to see that their masters came to no harm
during their nocturnal adventures. As Heinz always said, no sense in
antagonising the nobs. They could have his tavern shut and his staff
inside the Iron Tower with a whisper in the right ear. Best to toady
to them, look out for them and to put up with their obnoxious
ways.
By the fire, near to the supposed necromancer, was the deca-
dent Bretonnian poet, Armand le Fevre, son of the famous
admiral and heir to the le Fevre fortune. He sat alone, drinking
absinthe, his eyes fixed at some point in the mid-distance, a slight
trickle of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. Every night,
at midnight, he would lurch to his feet and announce that the
end of the world was coming, then two hooded and cloaked ser-
vants would enter and carry him to his waiting palanquin and
then home to compose one of his blasphemous poems. Felix
shuddered, for there was something about the young man which
reminded him of Manfred von Diehl, another sinister writer of
Felix's acquaintance, and one which he would rather forget.
As well as the exotic and the debauched, there were the usual rau-
cous youths from the student fraternities, who had come here to the
roughest part of town to prove their manhood to themselves and to
their friends. They were always the worst troublemakers; spoiled,
rich young men who had to show how tough they were for all to see.
They hunted in packs and were as capable of drunken viciousness as
the lowest dockside cut-throat. Maybe they were worse, for they con-
sidered themselves above the law and their victims less than vermin.
From where he stood, Felix could see a bunch of jaded young
dandies tugging at the dress of a struggling serving-wench. They were
demanding a kiss. The girl, a pretty newcomer called Elissa, fresh
from the country and unused to this sort of behaviour, was resisting
hard. Her struggles just seemed to encourage the rowdies. Two of
them had got to their feet and began to drag the struggling girl
towards the alcoves. One had clamped a hand over her mouth so that
her shrieks would not be heard. Another brandished a huge
blutwurst sausage obscenely.
Felix moved to interpose himself between the young men and the
alcoves.
'No need for that,' he said quietly.
The older of the two youths grinned nastily. Before speaking he
took a huge bite of the blutwurst and swallowed it. His face was
flushed and sweat glistened on his brow and cheeks. 'She's a feisty
wench - maybe she'd enjoy a taste of a prime Nuln sausage.'
The dandies laughed uproariously at this fine jest. Encouraged, he
waved the sausage in the air like a general rallying his troops.
'I don't think so,' Felix said, trying hard to keep his temper. He
hated these spoiled young aristocrats with a passion, had done ever
since his time at the University of Altdorf where he had been sur-
rounded by their sort.
'Our friend here thinks he's tough, Dieter,' said the younger of the
two, a crop-headed giant larger than Felix. He sported the scarred face
of a student duellist, one who fought to gain scars and so enhance his
prestige.
Felix looked around for some help. The other bouncers were try-
ing to calm down a brawl between the Kislevites and the halberdiers.
Felix could see Gotrek's crest of dyed hair rising above the scrum. No
help from that quarter, then.
Felix shrugged. Better make the best of a bad situation, he thought.
He looked straight into the duellist's eye.
'Just let the girl be,' he said with exaggerated mildness - then some
devil lurking at the back of his mind prompted him to add, 'and I
promise not to hurt you.'
'You promise not to hurt us?' The duellist seemed a little confused.
Felix could see that he was trying to work out whether this lowly
bouncer could possibly be mocking him. The student's friends were
starting to gather around, keen to start some trouble.
'I think we should teach this scumbag a lesson, Rupert,' Dieter said.
'I think we should show him he's not as tough as he thinks he is.'
Elissa chose this moment to bite Dieter's hand. He shrieked with
pain and cuffed the girl almost casually. Elissa dropped as if pole-
axed. 'Bitch took a chunk out of my hand!'
Suddenly Felix had just plain had enough. He had travelled hun-
dreds of leagues, fought against beasts, monsters and men. He had
seen the dead rise from their graves and slain evil cultists on
Geheimnisnacht. He had killed the city of Nuln's own chief of
secret police for being in league with the wretched skaven. He didn't
have to take cheek from these spoiled whelps, and he certainly
didn't need to watch them beat up an innocent girl.
Felix grabbed Rupert by the lapels and swung his forehead for-
ward, butting the duellist on the nose. There was a sickening crunch
and the big youth toppled backward, clutching his face. Felix
grabbed Dieter by the throat and slapped him a couple of times just
for show, then slammed the student's face into the heavy tabletop.
There was another crunch. Steins toppled.
The spectators pushed their chairs backwards to avoid being
soaked. Felix lacked Dieter's legs out from under him and then,
after he hit the ground, kicked him in the head a couple of times.
There was nothing pretty or elegant about it, but Feiix was not in the
mood to put up with these people any more. Suddenly they sick-
ened him and he was glad of the chance to vent his anger.
As Dieter's friends surged forward, Felix ripped his sword from its
scabbard. The razor-sharp blade glittered in the torchlight. The
angry students froze as if they had heard the hissing of a deadly ser-
pent.
Suddenly it was all deathly quiet. Felix put the blade down
against the side of Dieter's head. 'One more step and I'll take his ear
off. Then I'll make the rest of you eat it.'
'He means it,' one of the students muttered, Suddenly they did
not look so very threatening any more, just a scared and drunken
bunch of young idiots who had bought into much more trouble
than they had bargained for. Felix twisted the blade so that it bit
into Dieter's ear, drawing blood. The young man groaned and
squirmed under Felix's boot.
Rupert whimpered and clutched his nose with one meaty hand.
A river of red streamed over his fingers. 'You broke my node,' he said
in a tone of piteous accusation. He sounded like he couldn't believe
anyone would do anything so horribly cruel.
'One more word out of you and I'll break your fingers too,' Felix
said. He hoped nobody tried to work out how he was going to do
that. He wasn't quite sure himself, but he needn't have worried.
Everybody took him absolutely seriously. 'The rest of you pick your
friends up and get out of here, before I really lose my temper.'
He stepped away from Dieter's recumbent form, keeping his
blade between himself and the students. They hurried forward,
helped their injured friends to their feet, and hurried towards the
door. A few kept terrified eyes on Felix as they went.
He walked over to Elissa and helped her to her feet.
'You all right?' he asked.
'Fine enough. Thanks,' she said. She looked up at him gratefully.
Not for the first time, Felix noticed how pretty she was. She smiled
up at him. Her tight black ringlets framed her round face. Her lips
pouted. He reached down and tucked one of her jet-black curls
behind her ear.
'Best go and have a word with Heinz. Tell him what happened.'
The girl hurried off.
'You're learning, manling,' the Trollslayer's voice said from
behind him.
Felix looked around and was surprised to see Gotrek grinning
malevolently up at him. 'I suppose so,' he said, although right at
this moment he felt a little shaky. It was time for a drink.
Grey Seer Thanquol perched on the three-legged bone stool in
front of the farsqueaker and bit his tail. He was angry, as angry as he
could ever remember being. He doubted he had been so angry even
on the day he had made his first kill, and then he had been very,
very angry indeed. He dug his canines into his tail until the sensa-
tion made his pink eyes water. Then he let go. He was sick of
inflicting pain on himself. He felt like making someone else suffer.
'Hurry-fast! Scuttle-quick or I will the flesh flay from your most
unworthy bones,' he shrieked, lashing out with the whip he carried
for just such occasions as this.
The skaven slaves squeaked in dismay and scuttled faster on the
lurching treadmill attached to the huge mechanisms of the
farsqueaker. As they did so, the powerglobes began to glow slightly.
Their flickering light illumined the long musty chamber. The shad-
ows of the warp engineers of Clan Skryre danced across the walls as
they made adjustments to the delicate machine by banging it lightly
with sledgehammers. A faint tang of warpstone and ozone became
perceptible in the air.
'Quick! Quick! Or I will feed you to the rat-ogres.'
A chance would be a fine thing, Thanquol thought. If only he had
a rat-ogre to feed these slaves too. What a disappointment Bonerip-
per had proved to be - that cursed dwarf had slain him as easily as
Thanquol would slaughter a blind puppy. Just the thought of that
hairless dwarf upstart made Thanquol want to squirt the musk of
fear. At the same time, hatred bit at Thanquol's bowels and stayed
there, gnawing as fiercely as a newly born runt chomping on a bone.
By the Horned Rat's foetid breath, he wanted revenge on the
Trollslayer and his henchman! Not only had they slain Boneripper
and cost Thanquol a lot of precious warptokens, they had also
killed von Halstadt and thus disrupted the grey seer's master plan
for throwing Nuln and the Empire into chaos.
True, Thanquol had other agents on the surface, but none so
highly placed or so malleable as the former head of Nuln's secret
police. Thanquol wasn't looking forward to reporting the failure of
this part of the scheme to his masters back in Skaveriblight. In fact,
he had put off making his report for as long as he decently could.
Now he had no option but to talk to the Seerlord and report how
things stood. Warily he looked up at the huge mirror on top of the
farsqueaker, as he waited for a vision of his master to take form.
The skaven slaves scuttled faster now. The light in the warpglobes
became brighter. Thanquol felt his fur lift and a shiver run down his
spine to the tip of his tail as sparks leapt from the globes at either
end of the treadmill, flickering upwards towards the huge mirror at
the top of the apparatus. One of the warp engineers rushed over to
the control panel and wrenched down two massive copper switches.
Forked lightning flickered between the warpglobes. The viewing
mirror began to glow with a greenish light. Little flywheels began to
buzz. Huge pistons rose and fell impressively.
Briefly Thanquol felt a surge of pride at this awesome triumph of
skaven engineering, a device which made communication over all
the long leagues between Nuln and Skavenblight not only possible
but instantaneous.
Truly, no other race could match the inventive genius of the
skaven. This machine was just one more proof, if any was needed,
of skaven superiority to all other so-called sentient races. The skaven
deserved to rule the world - which was doubtless why the Horned
Rat had given it into their keeping.
A picture took shape in the mirror. A towering figure glared down
at him. Thanquol shivered again, this time with uncontrollable fear.
He knew he was looking on the features of one of the Council of
Thirteen in distant Skavenblight. In truth, he could not tell which,
since the picture was a little fuzzy. Maybe it was not even Seerlord
Tisqueek. Swirls and patterns of interference danced across the mir-
ror's shimmering surface. Perhaps, Thanquol should suggest that the
engineers of Clan Skryre make a few adjustments to their device.
Now, however, hardly seemed the time.
'What have... to... report... SeerThanq...' The majestic voice of
the council member emerged from the machine's squeaking trum-
pet as a high-pitched buzzing. Thanquol had to strain to make out
the words. With his outstretched paw he snatched up the mouth-
piece, carved from human thighbone and connected to the machine
by a cable of purest copper. He struggled hard to avoid gabbling his
words.
'Great triumphs, lordly one, and some minor setbacks,' Thanquol
squeaked. His musk glands felt tight. He fought to keep from bar-
ing his teeth nervously.
'Spea... up... Grey... I... hardly hear you... and...'
Thanquol decided there were definitely a few problems with the
farsqueaking machine. Many of the Seerlord's words were being
lost, and doubtless his superior was only catching a few of
Thanquol's own words in return. Perhaps, thought the grey seer, this
could be made to work to his advantage. He must consider his
options.
'Many triumphs, lordly one, and a few minor setbacks!'
Thanquol bellowed as loud as he could. His roaring startled the
slaves and they stopped running. As the treadmill slowed, the pic-
ture started to flicker and fade. The long tongues of lightning
dimmed. 'Faster, you fools! Don't stop!'
Thanquol encouraged the slaves with a flick of his lash. Slowly
the picture returned until the dim outline of the gigantic skaven
lord was visible once more. A cloud of foul-smelling smoke was
starting to emerge from the farsqueaker. It smelled like something
within the machine was burning. Two warp engineers stood by with
buckets of foul water drawn directly from the nearby sewers.
'...setbacks, Grey ...eer Thanquol?'
If ever there was time for the machine's slight irregularities to
prove useful, now was that time, thought Thanquol. 'Yes, master.
Many triumphs! Even as we speak our warriors scout beneath the
man-city. Soon we will have all information we need for our
inevitable triumph!'
'I said... setbacks... Seer Thanquol.'
'It would not wise be to send them back, great one. We need
every able-bodied skaven warrior to map the city.'
The councillor leaned forward and fiddled with a knob. The
picture flickered and became slightly clearer. Thanquol could now
see that the speaker's head was obscured by a great cowl which hid
his features. The members of the Council of Thirteen often did
that. It made them seem more mysterious and threatening.
Thanquol could see that he was turning and saying something to
someone just out of sight. The grey seer assumed his superior was
berating one of the engineers of Clan Skryre.
'...and how is... agent von Halstadt...'
'Indisposed,' Thanquol replied, a little too hastily for his own lik-
ing. Somehow it sounded better than saying he was dead. He
decided to change the subject quickly. He knew that he had better
do something to save the situation and fast.
No matter how cunningly he stalled his masters on the
farsqueaker, he knew that word of Fritz von Halstadt's death would
get back to them eventually. Every skaven force was full of spies and
snitches. It was only a matter of time before the news of his
scheme's failure reached Skavenblight. By then Thanquol knew he
had better have some concrete successes to report.
'We have news... change of plans... we send army to Nuln...
when ready... ttack city...' The Seerlord's words made Thanquol's
ears rise with pleasure. If an army was being dispatched to Nuln, he
would command it. Taking the city would increase his status
immeasurably.
Warlord Vermek Skab will command... render him all... sible
assistance...'
Thanquol bared his teeth with disappointment. He was being
replaced in command of this army. He sniffed as he considered the
matter. Maybe not. Vermek Skab might have an accident. Then Grey
Seer Thanquol could rise majestically to claim his full and rightful
share of the glory!
Thanquol's nose twitched. The billowing cloud of smoke from
the machine almost filled the chamber now, and Thanquol was
pretty sure that the device was not supposed to be emitting great
showers of sparks like that. The fact that two of the warp engi-
neers were running for the door wasn't a good sign either. He
considered following them.
'I have foreseen the presence... ill-omened elements in your
future, Than... I predict disaster for you unless... do something
about them.'
Suddenly Thanquol was rooted to the spot, torn between his
desire to flee and his desire to hear more. He almost squirted the
musk of fear. If the seerlord prophesied something then it had
almost as good as happened. Unless, of course, his superior was
lying to him for purposes of his own. That happened all too often,
as Thanquol knew only too well.
'Disaster, lordly one?'
'Yes... see a dwarf and a human... destinies are intertwined with
yours... you do not slay them then...'
There was a very loud and final bang. Thanquol threw himself off
his stool and cowered on the floor. An acrid taste filled his mouth.
Slowly the smoke cleared and he saw the fused and melted remains
of the farsqueaking machine. Several dead skavenslaves lay in its
midst, their fur all charred and their whiskers burned away. In one
corner a warp engineer lay curled up in a ball, mewling and
writhing in a state of shock. Thanquol was unconcerned about their
fate. The Seerlord's words filled him with a great fear. He wished he
had been able to speak with his superior a little longer, but alas, he
had not that option. He raised his little bronze bell and tinkled it.
Slowly members of his bodyguard entered the chamber.
Clawleader Gazat looked almost disappointed to see him alive,
Thanquol thought. Briefly the idea that the warrior might have sab-
otaged the farsqueaker crossed Thanquol's mind. He dismissed it -
Gazat did not have the imagination. Anyway, the Grey Seer had
more important things to worry about.
'Summon the gutter runners!' Thanquol squeaked in his most
authoritative tone. 'I have work for them.'
For a moment silence fell over the chamber. A foul smell made
Thanquol's whiskers twitch. Just the mere mention of the dreaded
assassins of Clan Eshin had caused Clawleader Gazat to squirt the
musk of fear.
'Quick! Quick!' Thanquol added.
'Instantly, master,' Gazat said sadly and scuttled off into the
labyrinth of sewers.
Thanquol rubbed his paws in glee. The gutter runners would not
fail, of that he was assured.
Felix unlocked the door of his chamber and entered his room. He
yawned widely. He wanted for nothing more than to lie down on
his pallet and sleep. He had been working for more than twelve
hours. He put the lantern down beside the straw-filled mattress and
unlaced his jerkin. He tried to give his surroundings as little atten-
tion as was possible, but it was difficult to ignore the loud moans of
passion coming from the next room and the singing of the drinkers
downstairs.
The chamber wasn't good enough for paying guests, but it suited
him well enough. He had occupied better, but this one had the great
virtue of being free. It came with the job. Like a minority of old
Heinz's staff, Felix chose to live on the premises.
Felix's little pile of possessions stood in one corner, under the
barred window. There was his chainmail jerkin and a little rucksack
which contained a few odds and ends such as his fire-making kit.
Felix threw himself down on the bed and pulled his old, tattered
woollen cloak over himself. He made sure his sword was within
easy reach. His hard life on the road had made him wary even in
seemingly safe places, and the thought that the skaven they had
recently encountered might still be about filled him with dread.
He recalled only too well the huge corpse of the slain rat-ogre lying
at the foot of the stairs in von Halstadt's mansion. It had not been a
reassuring sight. Somehow he was unsurprised that he had heard
nothing at all about the fire at von Halstadt's mansion. Perhaps the
authorities had not found the skaven bodies, or perhaps there was a
cover-up. Right now, Felix didn't even want to consider it.
Felix wondered how men could ignore the tales of the skaven.
Even as a student he had come across scholarly tomes proving that
they didn't exist, or that if they had ever existed they were now
extinct. He had come across a few references to them in connection
with the Great Plague of 1111 and of course the Emperor of that
period was known as Mandred Skavenslayer. Yet that was all. There
were innumerable books written about elves and dwarfs and orcs,
yet knowledge of the rat-men was rare. He could almost have sus-
pected an organised conspiracy to cloak them in secrecy but that
thought was too disturbing, so he pushed it aside.
There was a soft knock at the door. Felix lay still and tried to
ignore it. Probably just one of the drunken patrons lost and look-
ing for his room again, he told himself.
The knock came again, more urgently and insistently this time.
Felix rose from the bed and snatched up his sword.
A man could never be too careful in these dark times. Perhaps
some bravo lurked out there, and thought a sleep-fuddled Felix
would prove easy prey. Only two months ago Heinz had found a
murdered couple lying on bloodstained sheets a mere three doors
away. The man had been a prominent wine merchant, the girl his
teenage mistress. Heinz suspected that the merchant had been slain
by assassins on order of his harridan of a wife, but claimed also that
it was none of his business. Felix had got his new tunic all covered
in blood when he dumped the bodies in, the river. He hadn't been
too thrilled about having to use the secret route through the sewers
either.
The knocking came a third time, and he heard a woman's voice
whisper, 'Felix.'
Felix eased his blade from its scabbard. Just because he heard a
girl's voice didn't mean that there was only a girl waiting for him
out there. She might have brought a few burly friends who would
set about him as soon as he opened the door.
Briefly he considered not opening the door at all, of simply
waiting until the girl and her friends tried to batter the door
down then he realised quite how paranoid he had become. He
shrugged. Since the deaths of Hef and Spider and the rest of the
sewer watch he had every reason to be paranoid. Still, was he
going to wait here all night? He slipped the bolts and opened
the door. Elissa was waiting there.
She looked up at him nervously, brushing a curl from her fore-
head. She was very short but really very pretty indeed, Felix decided.
'I... I wanted to thank you for helping me earlier,' she said even-
tually.
Felix thought that it was a bit late for that. Couldn't she have
waited until the morning? Slowly, though, realisation dawned on
him. 'It was nothing,' he muttered, feeling his face flush.
Elissa glanced quickly left and right down the corridor. 'Aren't
you going to invite me in, I wanted to thank you properly.'
She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss his lips. He stood there
dumbfounded for a second then pulled her into the room and
slammed the door, slipping the lock into place.
As his henchling Queg reached twelve in his muttered count,
Chang Squik of Clan Eshin twitched his nose and sampled the
smells of the night.
Strange, he thought; so like the stinks of the man-cities of Far
Cathay and yet so unlike. Here he could smell beef and turnip and
roast pig. In the east it would have been pickled cabbage and rice
and chicken. The food smelled different but everything else was the
same. There was the same scent of overflowing sewers, of many
humans living in close proximity, of incense and perfume.
He opened his ears as his master had trained him as well. He
heard temple bells tolling and the rattle of carriage wheels on cob-
bles. He heard the singing of drunks and the call of the night
watchmen as they shouted the hour. It did not trouble him. He
could not be distracted. He could, if he so wished, tune out all
extraneous sound and pick out one voice in a crowd.
The skaven squinted out into the darkness. His night-vision was
keen. Down there were the shadowy shapes of men and women
leaving the taverns arm in arm, heading for brief liaisons in back
alleys and squalid rooming houses. Chang did not care about them
at all. His two targets were in the building that humans called a tav-
ern.
He did not know why the honourable grey seer had selected
these two, out of all the inferior souls in this city, for inevitable
death. He merely knew it was his task to ease the passing of their
souls into the maw of the Horned Rat. He had already offered up
two sticks of narcotic incense and pledged their immortal essence
for his dark god's feast. He could almost, but not quite, feel sorry for
the doomed ones.
They were there in that tavern, under the sign of the Blind Pig,
and they did not know that certain doom approached. Nor would
they, for Chang Squik had trained for years in the delivery of silent
death. Long before he had left the warm jungles of his eastern
homeland to serve the Council of Thirteen in these cold western
climes, he had been schooled to perfection in his clan's ancient art
of stealthy assassination. While still a runt, he had been made to
run bare-pawed through beds of white hot coals, and snatch coins
from the bowls of blind beggars in human cities. Even at that early
age he had learned that the beggars were often far from blind, and
often viciously proficient in the martial arts.
By the time of his initiation he had become proficient in all forms
of unarmed combat. He was a third degree adept in the way of the
Crimson Talon and held a black belt in the Path of the Deadly Paw.
He had spent twelve long months being trained in silent infiltration
in the jungles, and a month in fasting and meditation high atop
Mount Yellowfang with only his own droppings for food.
Since that time he had killed and killed again in the name of the
Council of Thirteen. He had slain Lord Khijaw of Clan Gulcher
when that mighty warlord had plotted the downfall of Throt the
Unclean. He had served as personal assistant to Snikch when the
great assassin had killed Frederick Hasselhoffen and his entire
household, and he had been rewarded with one-on-one instruction
by the Deathmaster himself.
Chang Quik's list of triumphs was long, and tonight he would
add another to it. It was his task to slay the dwarf, Gotrek Gur-
nisson, and his human henchling, Felix Jaeger. He did not see how
he could fail.
What chance had a one-eyed dwarf and his stupid human friend
against a mighty skaven trained in every art of death-dealing?
Chang Squik felt confident that he could take the pair himself. He
had been almost insulted by Grey Seer Thanquol's insistence that
he take his full pack of gutter runners.
Surely the dire rumours of this dwarf were exaggerated. The Troll-
slayer could not possibly have slaughtered a unit of stormvermin
single-handed. And it seemed well nigh unbelievable that he could
have slain the rat-ogre, Boneripper, without the aid of an entire
company of mercenaries. And, of course, it was impossible that this
could be the same dwarf who five years ago had slain Warlord
Makrik of Clan Gowjyer at the Battle of the Third Door.
Chang exhaled in one long controlled breath. Perhaps the grey
seer was right. He had often proved to be so in the past. It was
simple prudence to assign the task of slaying the dwarf to Slitha.
Chang would slay the human, and if there were any difficulties he
would race to the assistance of his henchling's squad. Not that
there would be any difficulties.
Queg stopped counting at one hundred and tapped his superior
on the arm. Chang lashed his tail once to show that he understood.
Slitha and his team, with the clockwork precision which charac-
terised all skaven operations, would be in position at the secret
entrance to the tavern by now. It was time to proceed.
He loosened his swords in their scabbards, checked to make sure
that his blowpipe and throwing stars were ready at paw, and whis-
tled the signal to advance.
Like a dark wave, the pack of gutter runners surged forward over
the rooftop. Their blackened weapons were visible only as shadowy
outlines in the moons' light. Not a weapon clinked. Not an outline
was visible. Well, almost.
-
Heinz made his last rounds of the night, checking the doors and
windows of the lower floor to make sure they were securely barred.
It was amazing how often thieves tried to break in to the Blind Pig
and steal from its cellars. Not even the reputation for ferocity of
Heinz's bouncers could keep the desperately poor and alcoholic
denizens of the New Quarter from making the attempt. It was quite
pathetic really.
He made his way down into the cellars, shining his light into the
dark corners between the great ale barrels, and wine racks. He could
have sworn he heard a strange scuttling noise down here.
Just his imagination, he told himself.
He was getting old, starting to hear things. Even so, he went
over and checked the secret door that led down into the sewers. It
was hard to tell in this light but it looked undisturbed. He
doubted anybody had used it since he and Felix had dumped
those bodies two months back and saved everybody quite a scan-
dal. Yes, he was just getting old, that was all.
He turned and limped back to the stairwell. His bad leg was play-
ing up tonight. It always did when there was going to be rain. Heinz
smiled grimly, remembering how he'd got the old war wound. It
had been stamped on by a Bretonnian charger at the Battle of Red
Orc Pass. Clean break. He remembered lying there in the bloody
dirt and thinking it was probably a just payback for spiking the
horse's owner on his halberd. That had been a bad time, one of the
worst he had faced in all his years of soldiering. He'd learned a lot
about pain that day. Still there had been good times as well as bad
during his career as a mercenary, he was forced to admit that.
There were occasions when Heinz wondered whether he had
made the right decision, giving up the free-spirited life of the merce-
nary companies for the life of a tavern keeper. On nights like this he
missed the camaraderie of his old unit, the drinking round the camp-
fires, the swapping of stories and recounting of tales of heroism.
Heinz had spent ten years as a halberdier, and had seen service
on half the battlefields of the Empire, first as a lowly trooper and
later as a sergeant. He had risen to captain during Emperor Karl
Franz's campaigns against the orc hordes in the east. During the
last Bretonnian scrap he had made enough in plunder to buy the
Blind Pig. He had finally given in to old Lotte's promptings to set-
tle down and make a life for the two of them. His old comrades
had laughed when he had actually married a camp follower. They
had insisted she would run off with all his money. Instead the two
of them had been blissfully happy for five years before old Lotte
had to spoil it all by going and dying of the Wasting Sickness. He
still missed her. He wondered if there was anything to stay here in
Nuln for now. His family were all dead. Lotte was gone.
As he reached the head of the stair, Heinz thought he heard the
scuttling sound again. There was definitely something moving
down there.
Briefly he considered calling Gotrek or some of the other lads,
and getting them to investigate, then he spread his huge hands wide
in a gesture of disgust. He really was getting old if he would let the
noise of some rats scrabbling round in his cellar upset him. He
could just imagine what the others would say if he told them he was
scared to go down there himself. They would laugh like drains.
He drew the thick cosh from his waistband and turned to go back
down. Now he really was uneasy. He would never have drawn the
weapon normally. He was too calm and easy tempered. Something
definitely did have him spooked.
His old soldier's instincts were aroused, and they had saved him
on more than one occasion.
He could still remember that night along the Kislevite border
when he had somehow been unable to get to sleep, filled with a ter-
rible sense of foreboding. He had risen from his bed and gone to
replace the sentry, only to find the man dead at his post. He had
only just roused the camp before the foul beastmen attacked. He
had a similar feeling in the pit of his stomach now. He hesitated at
the top of the stair.
Best go get Gotrek, he thought. Only the real hardcore drinkers
were still in the tavern by now. The rest were asleep, under the
tables, in the alcoves, in the private rooms, or else gone home.
There it was again, that skittering sound, like the soft scrabble of
padded claws on the stone stairs. Heinz was definitely worried now.
He pulled the door closed and turned, almost running down the cor-
ridor until he came out in the main bar area. A handful of the
bouncers chattered idly with a few of the barmaids.
'Where's Gotrek?' Heinz asked. A burly lad, Helmut, jerked his
thumb in the direction of the privies.
Slitha reached the head of the staircase and flung the door open. So
far, so good. All was going like a typically well-oiled Clan Skryre
machine. Everything according to plan. They had entered the tavern
undeteaed; now it was simply a case of searching the place until they
came upon the dwarf and killed him. And furthermore killed any-
thing else that got in their way, of course.
Slitha felt a little irritated. It was typical of his superior to take the
easy task. They had already found out where the human Jaeger slept,
and their leader had taken the task of killing him for himself. Surely
that was the only explanation. It could not be that the great Chang
Squik was afraid of an encounter with the Trollslayer. Not that Slitha
cared. When he dispatched the feared dwarf it would simply reflect
all the more to his credit. He gestured for his fellows to go in first.
'Quick! Quick!' he chittered. 'All night we haven't got!' The gutter
runners moved quickly into the corridor.
.
Felix and Elissa lay on his palette, kissing deeply, when suddenly
Felix shifted uneasily. He thought he heard the faintest of scrabbling
sounds from outside the window.
He gently untangled Elissa's arms from around him, and was sud-
denly aware of the area of heat and sweat where their bodies met. He
looked down on the serving girl's face. Her face was a little puffed on
the left side from where the student had hit her but she really was
very pretty.
'What is it?' she asked, looking up at him with wide, trusting eyes.
He listened for a moment and heard nothing.
'Nothing,' he said, and began kissing her again.
Slitha bounded down the corridor. He smelled dwarf. He fol-
lowed the scent, whistling commands to his fellows in the fore.
Surprised by skaven stealth, speed and savagery, their weak foe
would swiftly be dragged down. What chance would a mere dwarf
have against the deadliest warriors of the master race? Slitha
almost felt sorry that he was in the rear, the traditional position of
honour any skaven leader adopted whenever possible. He would
have liked a chance to be the first to sink his blade into the dwarf
and offer up his soul to the Horned Rat.
They reached the end of the corridor. The stench of dwarf inten-
sified. He must be very close now. Slitha's heart rate accelerated
dramatically. Blood raced through his veins. His tail stiffened and
lashed. The claws in his feet extruded instinctively. As he made
ready for combat, he bared his fangs in a snarl. The scent was very
strong: they must be almost on top of the Trollslayer. His warriors
lashed their tails proudly, ready to overwhelm their opponent with
their numbers and savagery.
Suddenly a red mist filled Slitha's eyes. It looked as if a huge axe
had cut Klisqueek in half, but that could not be. They could not
have been detected. It was impossible that a mere dwarf would have
the cunning to ambush a pack of skaven gutter runners.
Yet suddenly Hrishak was squeaking in pain and terror. A huge fist
had caught him by the throat. The butt of a monstrous axe cracked
his skull. The thick, cloying scent of the musk of fear filled the air
now. Klisqueek's body had already started to dissolve into a puddle
of black slime, as the Clan Eshin decomposition spells took effect.
Slitha looked out into a swirling melee where half a dozen of his
finest gutter runners were attempting to swarm over a massive
dwarfish form. His pale hairless flesh was emphasised by the black
of the skaven's cloaks. Slitha saw the huge axe swing around in a
deadly arc. He heard bones crunch and brains splatter.
Try and sneak up on me, would you,' muttered the dwarf in Reik-
spiel. He added a guttural curse in Dwarfish as he clove a path of red
ruin through the skaven assassins. The dwarf bellowed and chanted
a strange war-cry as he fought.
Slitha shuddered. The noise was enough to awaken the dead, or
at least any sleeping human guards. He felt the advantage of stealth
and surprise slipping away. His eyes widened with terror as he
watched the dwarf complete his bloody work, cutting down Snikkit
and Blodge with one stroke. Suddenly Slitha realised that he was
alone, facing one very angry and very dangerous dwarf.
It was impossible to believe, but the dwarf had killed most of his
brethren in a matter of seconds. Nothing in all the world, not even
an assassin of Clan Eshin, could conceivably be so deadly. Slitha
turned to flee but a hob-nailed boot descended on his tail, pinning
him in place. Tears of pain filled Slitha's eyes. The musk of fear
voided from his glands.
The last thing he heard was the whoosh of a huge axe coming closer.
* * *
Despite himself, Felix untangled himself from Elissa again and
looked around. What was that noise? It sounded like fighting down-
stairs. He was sure he could recognise Gotrek's deep-throated
battle-cry. The girl was looking up at him, puzzled, wondering why
he had stopped kissing her. She opened her mouth to speak. Felix
placed a hand gently over her lips. He leaned forward until his
mouth was over her ear.
'Be very quiet,' he whispered. A cold trickle of fear ran through
him. He could definitely hear a strange scrabbling sound coming
from over by the window. Felix lifted himself off the recumbent girl
and reached for his dragon-hilted sword. He slipped backwards off
the straw pallet and fell into a half crouch.
Placing one finger against his lips to indicate she should be quiet,
he gestured for the woman to get up off the bed. She stared at him
uncertainly, then followed his gaze over to the window.
That was when she screamed.
Chang Squik watched as Noi swung down on the rope. He felt
almost proud of his pupil. Noi had fixed the grapnel in the gutter-
ing perfectly, then abseiled down the side of the tavern like a great
spider. He had sprayed the metal bars covering the window with
acid, then filed through the weakened iron like a master burglar.
He reached up and gestured to the rest of the squad on the tavern
roof. They fixed their ropes in position and made ready to follow
Noi. Chang would be last in, as befitted the glorious strike leader.
Noi kicked himself back from the wall, swinging out into space,
gaining momentum to crash through the window.
The window caved in and a black-clad skaven crashed through it. It
hit the floor rolling and emerged into a fighting crouch, tail lashing, a
long curved blade glinting evilly in each claw. Felix didn't wait for it to
get time to orientate itself. He lashed forward with his own blade,
almost catching the thing by surprise. Sparks flashed as the creature
parried, deflecting Felix's blade so that it only seared along its cheek.
'Run, Elissa!' Felix shouted. 'Get out!'
For a moment, he thought the girl was too shocked to move. She
lay on the straw pallet, her eyes wide with horror, then suddenly she
sprang up. The distraction almost killed Felix. The moment he took
to look at her was a moment he did not look at his opponent. Only
the deadly whine of the skaven's blade as it darted towards his skull
warned him. He ducked his head, and the sword passed over him,
coming close enough to shave a lock off his hair. Felix lashed back
instinctively. The skaven sprang away.
'Felix!' Elissa shouted.
'Run! Get help!' Over the skaven's shoulder, he could see other feral
forms crowding round the window. They seemed to be struggling to
force a way in, each getting in the other's way. The window was packed
with mangy, scarred skaven faces. Things did not look good.
'Die! Die! Foolish man-thing,' the skaven chittered, bounding
forward. It feinted a stroke with its right blade, then lashed out with
its left. Felix caught its hand just above the wrist and immobilised
it. The thing's tail snaked obscenely round his leg and tried to trip
him. Felix brought the pommel of his sword down behind the
skaven's ear. It fell forward, but even as it did so it struck with its
blade, forcing Felix to jump away. He bounded back across the
room and skewered the skaven as it started to rise. Blood frothed
from the foul thing's lips as it died. A strange reeking stink filled the
air. The skaven's flesh started to bubble and rot.
Felix heard Elissa throw the door bolts. He risked a glance at her.
She had turned and was looking at him in a mixture of horror and
confusion, as if she did not know whether to leave him or to stay.
'Go!' he shouted. 'Get help. There's nothing you can do here.'
She vanished through the doorway, leaving Felix feeling
obscurely relieved. At least now he wasn't responsible for her safety.
As he turned to look back he saw that the skaven he had killed was
gone. It had left behind only a pool of black slime and its rotting
clothing. Felix wondered what deadly sorcery was at work.
A hiss of displaced air warned him of another threat. From the
corner of his eye, he caught sight of several glittering objects
hurtling towards him. He dived forward, aiming for the bed, hop-
ing it would break his fall. His mouth filled with straw from the
mattress as he landed. He fumbled with his left hand for his old red
cloak and pulled its wadded mass up in his left fist. He was just in
time. More shining objects spun through the air towards him. He
brought the cloak up and they impacted in the roll of thick wool.
Something sharp penetrated the cloth just between his fingers. Felix
looked down. He saw a throwing star, smeared with some foul red-
dish substance, doubtless poison.
Two more skaven had extricated themselves from the mass out-
side the window and dropped into the room. They scuttled towards
him with eye-blinding speed, evil shadows of man-sized rats, their
yellow fangs glistening in the lantern-light. He knew better now
than to even glance at the doorway. There was no way he could
reach it without taking a blade in his back.
Why me, he asked himself? Why am I standing here half-naked
and alone, facing a pack of skaven assassins? Why do these things
always happen to me? This sort of thing never happened to Sigmar
in the legends!
He threw the cloak over the head of the oncoming skaven. It
writhed in the tangle of woollen folds. Felix ran his blade through
it. His razor-sharp sword cut through flesh like butter. Black
blood soiled the garment. Felix struggled to pull the blade free.
The second rat-thing took advantage of his preoccupation and
sprang forward, both blades held high, swinging downwards like
butcher's cleavers. Felix threw himself backwards; the blade came
free with an awful sucking sound. He landed flat on his back, his
sword clutched in his hand. He raised its point and the flying
skaven impaled itself on it. As it fell, its weight pulled the blade
free from Felix's grasp.
Damn, he thought, rising to his feet. Weaponless. The point of
his blade was visible, protruding from the skaven's back. He was
reluctant to touch the foul beast with his naked flesh but he had no
choice if he wanted the blade. His cloak was already starting to flat-
ten as the skaven decomposed with terrifying rapidity.
Too late! More skaven leapt in through the window. There was
no time for any qualms. He picked up the skaven sword and
charged. The sheer fury of his rush took the skaven by surprise. He
cleaved one's skull before it could react and disembowelled another
with his return stroke. It fell, trying to hold in its ropy guts with one
claw, even as it attempted to strike Felix with the other.
Felix hacked at it again, severing the limb. He cut around him in
blind fury, feeling the terrible shock of impact run up his arm from
every blow. Slowly, though, more and more skaven pressed into the
room, and remorselessly, defending himself as best he could every
step of the way, he was pressed back towards the wall.
Heinz looked up in surprise as Gotrek stomped into the bar. In one
hand he held his blood-smeared axe. His other huge fist clutched a
dead skaven by the scruff of the neck. The thing was decomposing
at a frightening rate, seemingly undergoing weeks of decomposition
in moments. Gotrek glared around at the surprised bouncers with
his one good eye and dropped the body. It squelched and formed a
puddle at his feet.
'Bloody skaven,' he muttered. 'Whole bunch of them lurking just
outside the privy. Too stupid to know dwarfs have good ears.'
Heinz moved over to stand by the Trollslayer. He looked down at
the pool of rot with a peculiar mixture of fascination and distaste
written on his features.
That's a skaven alright.'
Gotrek looked up at him in surprise. 'Of course it was a bloody
skaven! I've killed enough of them in my time to know what they look
like by now.'
Heinz shrugged apologetically. Then he swivelled on his heels as
a scream emerged from the top of the stairwell. Heinz looked up in
surprise at the partially clad form of Elissa appearing at the head of
the stairs. The girl looked pale with terror.
'Felix!' she shouted.
'What has Felix done, girl?' he asked soothingly. She threw her-
self at him. He enfolded her shivering form with his brawny arms.
'No. They're trying to kill him. Monsters are trying to kill Felix.
They're in his room!'
'Has that girl been taking weirdroot?' a bouncer asked placidly.
Heinz looked over at Gotrek and the rest of the bouncers. All his
earlier forebodings returned. He remembered the scrabbling in the
cellars. He could see that the dwarf was having the same thought as
he was.
'What are we doing standing here?' Heinz roared. 'Follow me,
lads!'
This was better. This was more like the old days.
Felix knew that he was doomed. There was no way he could fight
all these skaven. There were too many of them and they were too
fast. If he had been wearing his chainmail shirt perhaps he would
have some chance of surviving all those stabbing blades. But he
wasn't.
His foes sensed victory and advanced. Felix danced in the centre
of a whirlwind of stabbing blades. Somehow he managed to survive
with only a few nicks and scratches. He found himself standing
beside his bed. Thinking quickly, he kicked the lantern over. Oil
spilled out onto the straw and lit it. In an instant, a wall of flame
separated him from the rat-men. He reached out and grabbed the
nearest one, hurling it into the flames. The skaven shrieked in agony
as its fur caught fire. It began to roll around on the floor, howling
and squeaking. Its fellows leapt back to avoid its blazing form.
Felix knew he had bought himself only a moment's breathing
space. He knew now there was only one chance. Doing what the
skaven least expected, he dived directly through the flames. Heat
scorched his flesh. He smelled the stink of his own singed hair. He
saw a gap in the skaven line near the door and dived through it,
almost slamming into the corridor wall. Heart pounding, breath
rasping in his lungs, blood pouring from a dozen nicks, he raced for
the head of the stairs, as if all the hounds of Chaos were at his heels.
A head poked out from the room next door. He recognised the
bald pate and lambchop whiskers of Baron Josef Mann, one of the
Blind Pig's most dedicated customers.
'What the hell is going on out there?' the old nobleman shouted.
'Sounds like you're performing unnatural acts with animals.'
'Something like that,' Felix retorted as he sprinted past. The old
man saw what was following him. His eyes went wide. He clutched
his chest and fell.
¦
Chang Squik glanced out round the doorway and gnawed the tip
of his tail in frustration. It was all going wrong. It had all started
going wrong from the moment that fool Noi had swung in through
the window. In their enthusiasm to be part of the kill, the rest of the
pack had all tried to get in behind him at once, all eager to claim
their share of the glory. Of course their lines had become entangled,
and they had all ended up clutching the window sill and each other
and frantically trying to scuttle into the room. Several of the idiots
had fallen to their deaths on the hard ground below. Serves the
fools right too.
It was ever the fate of great skaven captains to be let down by
incompetent underlings, he thought philosophically. Not even the
most brilliant plan could survive being executed by widess cretins.
It was starting to look like his entire command consisted of those.
They could not even kill a single feeble manling, even with all the
advantages of surprise, numbers and superior skaven armament. It
made him want to spit with frustration. Personally he suspected
treachery. Perhaps rivals in the clan had sent him a bunch of ill-
trained louts in order to discredit him. All in all, that seemed the
most likely explanation.
Briefly Chang considered taking a hand in the fray himself, but
only briefly. It was glaringly obvious to his superior intellect what was
going to happen next. The entire tavern would be roused and his
underlings would soon encounter stiff, and very likely fatal, resistance.
Let them get on with it, Chang thought. They deserve whatever
fate befalls them.
He slid back into the room, petulantly threw some of the man-
ling's clothing on the fire to add to the blaze, and then leapt out the
window. He caught the climbing line easily in one hand and
swarmed up the side of the building to safety.
Already he was considering what would be the best way to report
this minor setback to Grey Seer Thanquol.
*  *  *
Heinz grunted as something slammed into him. He almost top-
pled backwards as the weight hit him.
'Sorry,' said a polite voice that Heinz recognised as belonging to
Felix Jaeger. 'I was having a little trouble back there.'
Throwing stars whizzed past Heinz's ear. The smell of burning
filled his nostrils. He looked down a corridor crowded with scur-
rying rat-men. A cold fury filled him. Those cursed skaven were
trying to burn down the Blind Pig and rob him of his livelihood!
He pulled out his cosh and made to rash forward. He need not
have bothered. Gotrek pushed him to one side and charged
headlong into the throng. The rest of the bouncers advanced cau-
tiously behind him. From the far end of the corridor, various
nobles and their bodyguards emerged and slammed into the
skaven from the rear. Terrible carnage began.
It was all over very soon.
Felix sat in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket and shivering.
He looked across at Elissa. The girl smiled back at him wanly. All
around, the bouncers hurried upstairs with buckets of water, mak-
ing sure that the fire did not spread from Felix's room.
'I thought you were very brave,' Elissa said. There was a look of
complete doting admiration in her eye. 'Just like a hero in one of
those Detlef Sierck dramas.'
Felix shrugged. He was tired. He was riddled with dozens of cuts
and bruises. And he knew now that the skaven were definitely try-
ing to kill him. He didn't feel very heroic. Still, he thought, things
could be worse. He reached out and put an arm around Elissa's
shoulder and drew her to him. She snuggled in close.
Thank you,' he said, and for a moment the girl's smile made
everything feel more worthwhile.
NIGHT RAID
'It is a frightening thing to be sought by enemies
unknown, invisible and untraceable, who can strike at
you when they will without fear of vengeance or punish-
ment. At least, I found it to be so. If my companion
shared these feelings, he never gave any sign of it to me.
Indeed he seemed rather to enjoy the situation - which I
suppose was natural enough, given that his avowed pur-
pose in life was to seek a violent death. Yet I was
worried. The attack on the alehouse had left me shaken,
and the knowledge that somewhere out in the night an
implacable foe was lurking did nothing to calm my
fraught nerves. But it seemed that we had allies as well,
who were determined to aid us for their own unfath-
omable purposes.'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
'What are you doing there, young Felix?' A shadow fell on Felix
Jaeger. Startled, he reached for the hilt of his sword. The book fell
from his lap, almost landing in the fire, as he started to rise from the
overstuffed leather armchair. Looking up he saw that it was only old
Heinz, the owner of the Blind Pig tavern, standing over him, pol-
ishing a tankard that he held in one huge, meaty fist. Felix let out a
long sigh, suddenly all too aware of how tightly wound he was. He
sank back into the chair, forcing his hand to release its tight grip on
the weapon hilt.
'You're a little tense this evening,' Heinz said plainly.
'A little,' Felix agreed. A quick glance around told him that the old
ex-mercenary wasn't going to hassle him to start working. His ser-
vices as a bouncer were not needed just yet. It was early evening and
few patrons were about. Normally the tavern didn't really start
jumping until well after dark. On the other hand, for the first time,
Felix noticed that the Pig was much quieter than usual. Custom had
definitely dropped off since last week's skaven attack, an event
which had not improved the Blind Pig's already dire reputation.
Felix reached down and picked up his book, a cheap printed
manuscript of one of Dedef Sierck's more melodramatic plays. It
had served the purpose of distracting his thoughts from the fact that
the rat-men were apparently out to get him.
'It will be a quiet night tonight, Felix,' Heinz said.
'You think?'
'I know.' Heinz held the tankard up to the light, making sure he
had removed every last speck of dust from the thing. He set it down
on the mantelpiece. Felix noticed the way the light gleamed on the
old mercenary's bald head. Felix sighed and laid his book down on
the chair arm. Heinz was a sociable sort and he just naturally liked
to chat. Besides, maybe Heinz was just as nervous as himself. The
tavern keeper had every reason to be. He had almost lost his liveli-
hood to ferocious Chaos-worshipping monsters. It was only in the
last few days that all the damage the rat-men had done had been
repaired.
'Business has been bad since the skaven attack,' Felix said.
'Business will pick up again. Same thing happened after that mur-
der a couple of months back. The nobs will stay away for a bit but then
they'll come back. They like a sense of danger when they drink. It's
what they come here for. But we'll see nobody this evening, if I'm not
mistaken.'
'Why's that?'
The Feast of Verena. It's a special night here in Nuln. Most folk will
be at home, praying and fasting, making sure everything's spic and
span. She's the patron of this city, as well as of you bookish folk, and
this is her special night.'
There has to be someone wanting a drink.'
The only folk that will be having any fun are the Guild of Mechan-
ics and their apprentices. Verena's their patron too. The countess has a
big feast for them tonight in her palace. Nothing but the best for them.'
'Why does the countess feel compelled to give a feast for common-
ers?' Felix was curious. Countess Emmanuelle was not famed for her
generosity. 'She's not normally so fond of us.'
Heinz laughed. 'Aye, but these are special commoners. They run her
new College of Engineering for her. They're making steam-tanks and
organ guns and all sorts of other special weapons for her forces, same
as the Imperial College does for the Emperor. She can afford to give
them a nice dinner once a year if it keeps them happy.'
'I'll wager she can.'
'I thought maybe you might like to take the night off and be with
Elissa. I know it's her day off. I did notice you've been seeing a lot of
each other recently.'
Felix looked up. 'You disapprove?'
'Nothing wrong with a man and a maid being together, I always say.
Just making an observation.'
'She's gone back to her village for the day. One of her relatives is sick.
She should be back tomorrow.'
'Sorry to hear that. There's a lot of sickness about. Folk are starting
to mutter about the plague. Well, I'll let you get back to your book
then.'
Felix opened the book once more but didn't turn the page. He was
amazed that Heinz could be so sanguine just a few days after the attack.
Felix was jumping at shadows, but he was happily polishing his
tankards. Maybe all those years of being a mercenary had given the old
warrior nerves of steel. Felix wished he had them too. Right now he
could not help but wonder what the skaven were up to. He was sure it
was nothing good.
* * *
Grey Seer Thanquol leaned against the huge bulk of the Screaming
Bell. He gazed malevolently around the vast chamber and out at the
teeming sea of ratty skaven faces. All around him Thanquol sensed
the surge of activity, smelled the packed mass of the assembling
skaven troops in the surrounding tunnels. All the warriors of Clan
Skab were here, reinforced by contingents from all the great and
powerful factions in skavendom. It was good to be away from the
sewers, to be back here in the Underways, the subterranean high-
ways linking all the cities of the Under-Empire. It was good - but
right now he could take no pleasure from it. He was too angry.
He fought the feeling, reminding himself that somewhere, far
overhead, the humans went about their business, ploughing their
fields, chopping their forests, unsuspecting, not knowing their days
of dominance were nearly done, that soon their city and then their
Empire would fall beneath the iron paw of skaven military genius.
Not even these thoughts cheered him up or helped dispel his rage.
He ran a talon over the bell, drawing forth a slight ringing tone,
still seeking to control his anger. The bell swung slighdy at the grey
seer's touch, and the carriage on which the ancient artefact sat
groaned as it moved. The seething magical energies within the bell
comforted Thanquol a little. Soon, he told himself, he would
unleash these enormous forces against his enemies. Very soon, he
hoped, but right now he was filled with a terrible, all-consuming
rage and he needed to find someone to vent it upon.
Chang Squik grovelled in the dirt before him, waiting for the grey
seer to decide his fate. It had taken nearly a week for Thanquol to
locate him. The would-be assassin sprawled face down in the
shadow of the great bell. His tail lay flat. His whiskers drooped
despondently. The leader of the gutter runners continued to mutter
pathetic excuses about how he had been betrayed, about how the
targets had been warned of his otherwise irresistible attack, of how
they had used vile sorcery to slay his warriors - above all, about
how it had not been his fault. Near the assassin stood Thanquol's
lieutenants, hiding their mouths with their paws to cover the sound
of their mirth.
Thousands of faces peered up at Thanquol, eager to know what
he would do next. It was not often that they got to see one of the
mighty abase himself. Thanquol let his glance rest on each of the
warleaders. They squirmed under his inspection. Their Uttering
stopped. None of them wanted to be the focus of his anger - which
was unfortunate for them, because one of them was going to be.
The grey seer looked at the representatives of Clan Moulder, Clan
Eshin, Clan Skryre and Clan Pestilens. All of them were his to order
about, at least until his replacement, Warlord Vermek Skab, arrived.
And that was not going to happen. Thanquol had prepared a little
surprise for the warlord. Skab would never reach this place alive.
The thought made his tail rigid. And yet...
Yet, despite all this power under his control, he could not get this
one dwarf killed.
Anger and fear bit at the base of his stomach. Gotrek Gurnisson
and his worthless human henchman were still alive. It beggared
belief! How could this be?
It was almost as if he, the great Thanquol, was under a curse. He
shuddered at the very thought. Surely the Horned Rat would not
withdraw his favour from one of his chosen? No, he told himself
sternly, that was not the real reason why the dwarf was still alive.
The real reason was the worthlessness of his underlings.
Thanquol bared his fangs and allowed his rage to show. The
accursed gutter runners had failed him. By their sheer incompe-
tence, they had let the dwarf and the manling escape. Thanquol had
a good mind to have Chang Squik hung up by his tail and flayed
alive. Only his fear of possible reprisals by Clan Eshin kept him
from ordering his bodyguards to seize the gutter runner.
Rumour had it that Squik was a favoured pupil of Deathmaster
Snikch himself. That being the case, such straightforward vengeance
was out of the question. But, Thanquol thought, there was more
than one way to skin a rat. Someday he would make Chang Squik
pay for this monstrous failure. Thanquol's problem right now, how-
ever, was to find a way to safely vent the killing rage that was on
him, without making powerful enemies in the process. He lashed
his tail in frustration.
Thanquol glared at Izak Grottle. The monstrously obese skaven
lounged on a palanquin born by rat-ogres. The Clan Moulder pack-
master had arrived this very morning, keen to take part in the
triumph that was sure to follow this great offensive. He and his ret-
inue had scuttled along the Underways from the skaven secret base
at Night Crag in the Grey Mountains.
Grottle tried to hold Thanquol's burning gaze but could not.
He looked away and ran a paw over the largest of his bodyguard
of rat-ogres, a creature so massive that it made the late and unla-
mented Boneripper look small. The creature bellowed its pleasure
as Grottle fed it a tasty titbit of human fingers. Behind Grottle,
other packmasters and their beasts stood waiting. Thanquol
decided that he would spare Grottle. He did not doubt he could
destroy the fat one. He was not so sure that he could survive an
attack by the outraged beasts if they got out of control. Anyway he
could not blame the recently arrived packmaster for the failure of
last week's attack.
He turned his attention to the rotting form of Vilebroth Null,
low abbot of the plague monks of Clan Pestilens, who stood alone,
well apart from any other skaven. From within the abbot's cowl,
pus-filled, fearless green eyes met his own. Thanquol instantly dis-
missed the idea of venting his rage on the diseased one. Like every
skaven, he knew that the plague monks were quite mad. It was use-
less to antagonise them. Thanquol let his gaze slide slowly aside.
The plague monk triumphandy blew his nose on the sleeve of his
mouldering robe. A huge bubble of foul green snot swelled on his
wrist and then burst.
Next in line was the armoured form of Heskit One Eye, master
warp engineer of Clan Skryre. One Eye was small by skaven stan-
dards, dwarfed by his retinue of jezzail-armed bodyguards.
Thanquol was still angry with him for the explosion of the
farsqueaker. He suspected some sort of assassination attempt there,
though, in truth, it seemed unlikely that Clan Skryre would be
behind it. Intentionally blowing up one of their own precious
devices to kill an enemy was not their style. Thanquol decided to
spare Heskit. He was not in the slightest bit influenced by the fact
that the bodyguard's long-barrelled rifles could shoot the wings off
a fly at this range. No, not in the slightest.
He knew he couldn't punish these ones. They were too powerful.
Their clans were too influential and he needed them to spearhead
the attack on the mancity. Still, he had to kill someone, both to re-
establish his own authority and for his own pleasure. It wouldn't do
just to let them all off. It was not the skaven way.
An example had to be made.
One by one he turned his gaze on the Clan Skab warleaders. They
were all present now, save for Warlord Vermek Skab himself. All
wore the red and black livery of their clan. Each also had the single
scar running from their left ear to their left cheek which was the
badge of their clan. Each of them was as proud as a skaven could be,
the unchallenged master of a host of vicious warriors, yet each of
them hurriedly looked away when the grey seer met their eyes. They
knew of his foul temper by reputation. Even Tzarkual, the gigantic
leader of the stormvermin, would not face his wrath. He studied his
feet like a small runt facing discipline from his elders.
Good, thought Thanquol. They were cowed. He took a pinch of
warpstone snuff and watched them quake. Bright, mad visions of
horror and carnage skittered through his brain. He puffed with self-
confidence, convinced that at this moment he could face one of the
Council of Thirteen and triumph. As always, the drug-induced confi-
dence receded after a heart-stopping moment, leaving the afterglow
of pure, Chaos-induced power searing through his veins. Quickly,
before the heat could fade, he selected a victim. He stabbed out a
pointing talon at Lurk Snitchtongue, the weakest of the warleaders
and, not coincidentally, the one with least allies both here and back
in Skavenblight.
'You find something amusing, Snitchtongue?' Thanquol
demanded in his most intimidating high-pitched chitter. 'You think
something is very funny, perhaps?'.
Snitchtongue licked his snout nervously. He bobbed his head
ingratiatingly and held up his empty paws. 'No! No, great one.'
'Don't lie. If humour there is in the abject failure of the mighty gut-
ter runners, please share it. Your insight may prove most useful.
Come! Speak! Speak!'
The skaven on either side of Lurk backed away, cautiously putting
as much distance as they could between themselves and their
doomed fellow. In moments Lurk found himself standing in an open
space twenty feet across. He glanced over his shoulder, seeking some
way to escape, but there was none. Not even his personal bodyguard
would stand near him with the grey seer staring angrily down. Lurk
shrugged, lashed his tail and put his hand on the hilt of his blade. He
had obviously decided to brazen it out.
'If gutter runners failed it was because they were too subde,' Lurk
said. They should have attacked head-on, in a massed rush, blades
bared. That is the skaven way. That is the Clan Skab way.'
Chang Squik glared across at the skaven warrior. If looks could kill,
Lurk would have left the chamber in a casket. Thanquol was suddenly
intrigued by the situation. Here was an opportunity to twist the assas-
sin's tail with no possibility of reprisals against himself. The grey seer
decided that he would let Lurk live for a few moments longer.
'You are saying that you could have handled the situation better
than your brothers of Clan Eshin? You are saying you could succeed
where trained gutter runners of mighty Eshin failed?'
Lurk's jaws snapped shut. He stood for a moment, considering the
implications of that last statement, seeing the trap that the grey seer
had prepared for him. If he openly criticised Squik, he would make
an enemy of the powerful gutter runner, and doubdess take a knife in
his belly as he slept. On the other paw, he also obviously realised that
he had been singled out to face the grey seer's wrath no matter what.
He knew it was a choice between immediate and inevitable death -
or possible doom in the future. He rose to the occasion like a true
skaven warrior.
'Maybe,' he said.
Thanquol giggled. The after effects of the warpsnuff still dizzied
him. The rest of the skaven present echoed their leader's amuse-
ment with great roars of false chittering laughter.
Then perhaps you should take your warriors to the mancity
above and prove it, yes.'
'Indeed, great one,' the warleader replied. His voice sounded
relieved. He had a slim chance of living after all. 'Your enemies are
as good as dead.'
Somehow Thanquol doubted it, but he did not say so. Then he
cursed himself for his leniency. He had allowed Snitchtongue to
wriggle out from under his paw and not blasted him into a thou-
sand pieces as an example.
At that moment, a runner entered, puffing breathlessly. In the
traditional cleft thighbone of a human he carried, he held a mes-
sage. Seeing Thanquol he immediately abased himself before the
grey seer and prodded the bone forward.
Thanquol was tempted to blast him for his insolence. There was
a fine old skaven tradition of killing the messenger who brought
bad news to be kept up, but at this moment Thanquol did not even
know that the news was bad. Curiosity got the better of him and he
pulled the parchment from the stick. He noted that the corners were
creased and it had obviously been well-pawed.
No surprises there, then. Doubtless every spy between here and
Skavenblight had bribed the messenger so that he could look at
what he carried. That, too, was the skaven way. Thanquol did not
care. He had established his own codes, cunningly concealed
within deceptively innocuous messages, in order to keep his com-
munications secret.
He looked down at the blocky runes scrawled in a strong skaven
paw. The message read simply: The package has been delivered. A
sense of triumph filled Thanquol and dispelled his earlier anger. He
fought to control his sense of exultation and keep his pleasure from
his face. He looked down at the messenger and sneered, knowing
above all that appearances must be kept up and an example must
be made.
This message has been opened, traitor-thing!' he snarled and
raised his paw. A sphere of greenish light sprang into being around
Thanquol's clenched fist. The messenger cringed and tried to beg for
mercy but it was too late. Tentacles of hideous dark magical energy
leapt downwards from Thanquol's paw to encircle the doomed
skaven's body. The bands separated themselves and flowed around
the messenger, swimming through the air in the way that eels swim
through water, with a horrible sinuous wriggling. After a few
moments, the bands of energy lunged inwards, stabbing through
the skaven's body, boring through the flesh and emerging darker on
the other side.
Again and again they stabbed inwards, stripping away flesh and
muscle and sinew. Again and again the messenger let out high-
pitched, agonising screams. The smell of the musk of fear mingled
with the scent of blood and the ozone taint of the spell. In a matter
of seconds only a stripped skeleton stood before Thanquol. After a
heartbeat it collapsed into a pile of bone. The ribbons of magical
energy flowed together, somehow consuming each other as they did
so, until there was nothing left of them. The whole assembled
skaven host let out a great sigh of wonder and disbelief at seeing
their grey seer demonstrating his power in this satisfying manner.
Thanquol raised his paw and gestured for silence. In a moment
all was calm, save for a few coughs from the back rows.
'Lament, skaven! Tragic news!' Thanquol said, and even the
coughing stopped. 'Mighty Warlord Vermek Skab is dead, killed in
a terrible accident involving a loaded crossbow and an exploding
donkey. We will have the traditional ten heartbeats of silence to
mark the return of his soul to the Horned Rat.'
Immediately all the skaven started to talk among themselves.
The chitter of conversation only fell silent when Thanquol raised
his paw again and let the warning glow reappear around his
talons. All of them sensed the menace in the gesture and went
quiet. None of them wanted to be the next to be consumed by
those terrible wiggling bands of energy.
'Now we will prepare for the next phase of the master plan,'
Thanquol said. 'In the sad absence of Lord Skab, I must reassume
control of the army of conquest.'
'With great respectfulness, Grey Seer Thanquol, such is not the
case. As senior skaven here, my duty it is to assume command.' The
booming voice of Izak Grottle filled the chamber. 'Clan Moulder
had provided many warptokens to finance this expedition and I
must see that they are spent wisely.'
'What nonsense is this?' Vilebroth Null inquired. The words bub-
bled phlegmishly from his ruined throat. 'If any is to command
here, it should be me. To Clan Pestilens will go the honour of over-
throwing the mancity. We have great plans! Great plans! It is our
secret weapon that will destroy the human city!'
'No! No! I disagree,' chittered the reedy, high-pitched voice of
Heskit One Eye. 'The siege machines of Skryre will make victory pos-
sible and so to Skryre should fall the leadership. Naturally, as the
ranking representative of Clan Skryre I will now assume my duties as
supreme commander.'
This is a vile usurpation of Clan Moulder's privileges,' Izak Grot-
tie roared. The rat-ogres, hearing the anger in his voice, bellowed
with barely suppressed fury. The sound of their wrath echoed
around the cavern. 'Mutinous behaviour cannot be tolerated! No!
For the good of the force, warn you I must that one more word of
such treachery and my warriors will execute you instantaneously.'
The jezzail teams around Heskit swiftly brought their weapons to
bear on Izak Grotde. 'Your warriors? Your warriors? There speaks a
mad skaven. By what right do you name the warriors of my com-
mand your troops?'
'Both of you are trying my patience,' Vilebroth Null burbled. 'See-
ing my two senior lackeys bickering in such a runtish manner cannot
help but demoralise my army. Cease such treacherous behaviour at
once or face the hideous and inevitably fatal consequences.'
Null flexed his paws menacingly and suddenly there was a pack-
age of filthy stuff in his hands. No one present could doubt that it
was dangerous. The plagues of Clan Pestilens were famously deadly.
Grey Seer Thanquol looked on in baffled rage and barely con-
cealed glee. He half hoped that the various leaders would come to
blows, that violence would erupt and that these upstarts would
slaughter each other. Unfortunately, until circumstances proved oth-
erwise, he had to assume that he needed all of their help to
overthrow the mancity. So it was time to put a stop to this nonsense.
'Brother skaven,' he said in his most diplomatic voice. 'Consider
this. Until the coming of Vermek Skab, the Council of Thirteen
placed me in command of this army. Since Vermek Skab is sadly no
longer with us, the leader's place in the rear must still fall to me by
edict of the council. Of course, if any of you wishes to challenge the
council's ruling I will notify them of this at once.'
That quietened them, as Thanquol had known that it would. No
skaven in his right mind would even hint at the possibility of dis-
obeying a direct edict from the council. The dread rulers of the
skaven race had a long reach and their punishments were swift and
certain. By invoking the council's authority, Thanquol knew that he
would ensure the obedience of all present until such a time as they
could check back with their clan's rulers and representatives on the
council. Hopefully in that time Thanquol would have brought the
mancity to its knees.
'Of course, you are correct, Grey Seer Thanquol,' Heskit chittered.
'It is only that, as your second-in-command, I felt that these others
were overstepping the bounds of their authority.'
'I know not how Heskit can claim to be your second-in-command,
grey seer, when all know my respect for you is boundless, and my
devotion to your cause without limit,' Izak Grottle said.
Vilebroth Null merely coughed enigmatically and said: 'It pains
me to see these overbearing oafs challenging your rightful author-
ity, grey seer. Surely the power of my clan and my proven dedication
to your person must mean that I rank second here.'
'I have yet to decide who the Underleader will be. I must retire to
my burrow to contemplate strategy.' So saying, he descended from
the bell carriage and the seething sea of skaven parted before him.
Thanquol felt satisfied for the moment that he had the challenge to
his leadership under control.
This was more like it, thought Thanquol. Let them bicker over
who gets the scraps. The glory will belong to me.
As was only right.
Lurk Snitchtongue crouched down in his favourite hiding place,
a small cave above a long narrow gallery far from the main Under-
ways. He was worried as only a skaven of a naturally nervous
disposition could be. He knew that he had only days to make good
on his claim to be able to destroy the dwarf and the human who
had humiliated Chang Squik, or else he would suffer the same fate
as the messenger from Skavenblight.
He shuddered when he thought of that demonstration of the
grey seer's awesome power. Truly, the warpstone magic that
Thanquol wielded was to be feared. He knew that hiding would not
help him, that the grey seer would find him no matter how deep he
burrowed, but old instincts were hard to overcome. Even as a small
runt, in times of trouble Lurk had always sought out the hidden
places where he could spy on the bigger skaven and plan his
revenge.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, rage skittered around on
small, padded claws. He knew that Thanquol had picked on him
and the instinctive need for vengeance made him want to bury
his fangs in the grey seer's throat. The fact that he understood
why he was Thanquol's chosen victim did not make it any easier
to take. Basic skaven instinct told him the reason for Thanquol's
decision. From an early age, every young rat-man learned to
sense who it was unwise to antagonise and who it was possible
to bully with impunity. Those who did not, died in all manner
of horrific ways and were usually eaten by those who killed
them. On one level, he understood that Thanquol had victimised
him for good,  sound political reasons because he was the
youngest of the skaven leaders, and the least secure in his posi-
tion.
Lurk had risen to his current position as a junior warlord in Clan
Skab by being the favourite of Vermek Skab, and by informing on
those who had plotted against his distant cousin. He had a nose for
ferreting out information that might be useful, a talent that was
more than useful in a society so full of intrigue as that of a skaven
dan. But now Vermek Skab himself was dead, and Lurk doubted
that even his powerful kinrat would have been able to protect him
against the wrath of a grey seer. No, he decided more realistically,
Vermek would not have found him useful enough to be even both-
ered to try.
It was looking like his promising career was about to come to an
end. He would either die at the axe of a maniacal dwarf whom,
rumour had it, even Grey Seer Thanquol feared - or he would be
blasted by the seer's mind-bogglingly potent sorcery. Neither
prospect was particularly appealing to an ambitious young skaven.
Still, at the moment, there didn't seem to be anything he could do
about it.
Lurk heard voices coming from below him. He froze in place,
realising that others had sought out this lonely place for their own
purposes. He knew it was best to be quiet, for he was on his own
and packs of skaven had been known to fall upon and devour soli-
tary rat-men they found in remote tunnels. If truth be told, Lurk had
done it himself. He listened carefully, his keen ears twitching, hop-
ing to find out more about the approaching skaven.
'Curse Grey Seer Thanquol!' he heard a voice that he recognised
as belonging to Heskit One Eye. 'He has denied me my rightful
place at the head of this army, yes. Credit for victory over the
humans should rightfully belong to me and, of course, to Clan
Skryre.'
Lurk's whiskers twitched. This was treasonous talk and he was sure
that Grey Seer Thanquol would like to hear about it. He listened now
as if his life depended on it, thinking that he might have found a way
out of his predicament, a path on which to creep back into the grey
seer's good graces.
'Yes-yes, greatest of lords. A fool Thanquol is. Perhaps he too
could have an accident like Vermek Skab!' Lurk recognised the
fawning voice as belonging to Heskit's henchling, Squiksquik.
'Hush-hush! Speak not of such things. It has been tried before
but somehow accidents always seem to happen to someone else,
not to Grey Seer Thanquol. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps he does enjoy
the favour of the Horned Rat!'
So even the mighty Heskit feared the grey seer. This did nothing
to reassure Lurk about his own position. But still - what a patron
the grey seer would make if Lurk could ingratiate himself. By cling-
ing to Thanquol's tail, Lurk could rise very far indeed. The next
thing he heard made his tail stand on end.
The farsqueaker explosion should have worked but Thanquol
has the luck of a daemon, most far-sighted of plotters.'
'Never, never refer to that again. The farsqueaker malfunctioned
- that is all. Nothing more. If Grey Seer Thanquol was even to sus-
pect that it was anything else, the consequences would be very bad,
very bad. How goes the... other plan?'
'Well, greatest of warp engineers! We have located a hidden route
into the manplace. Our warriors stand ready to grab the devices the
moment you command it. Tonight is auspicious. The humans have
all been summoned to a feast by their ruling breeder.'
Lurk felt the soles of his paws tingle. Here was something else to
report back to Thanquol. A secret Clan Skryre scheme to acquire
human treasures. Surely Grey Seer Thanquol would reward anyone
who would report such a thing to him. He leaned forward stealth-
ily so that so he could see what was going on below him. The
movement dislodged some pebbles and sent them skittering to the
floor. The noise disturbed the Clan Skryre skaven, he saw them
jump into defensive stances and whip out their blades.
'What was that sound-noise?' Heskit demanded.
'I do not know, bravest of leaders,' Squiksquik said. 'Quick!
Quick! Go! Investigate.'
'A leader's place is in the rear. You go!'
Lurk cursed his bad luck. The noise had interrupted the Skryre's
plotting and now he might never know what they were up to.
'Most likely it is nothing, wisest of warleaders. Subsidence
merely. Tunnels are old.'
The two of them stood immobile in postures of listening. Lurk
hoped they did not look up. He dared not even pull himself back
into the shadows lest the movement attract the attention of their
keen skaven senses. He felt sure that they would be able to hear
the pounding of his heart. It was all he could do to keep from
squirting the musk of fear.
Slowly the two nervous Clan Skryre rat-men relaxed, letting their
breath come out slowly and easily. After a few more heartbeats, they
returned to their plotting.
'What are your orders, most cunning of commanders?'
'We will attack the man-things' steamworks tonight during the dark
of the moon. Their gun machines must be ours so that we can improve
on them. Their steam-chariots must be examined to see how we may
increase their effectiveness ten-thousand fold.'
'It will be as you wish, most superlative of technicians.'
'See that it is so!' Heskit barked and turned his back on Squiksquik
to stalk away. Lurk could not help but notice that as soon as Heskit's
back was turned, his lackey flicked his thumb against his protruding
incisors in the traditional skaven gesture of disrespect. Heskit turned.
By the time his leader's eye was upon him, Squiksquik had once again
adopted a posture of fawning adoration.
'Do not stand there all day. Come! Come! Quick! Quick! There is
much work to be done.'
In the darkness, Lurk smiled. He had learned many useful things
here, and it was time to visit the grey seer.
'What do you want?' Grey Seer Thanquol inquired, looking up from
the scroll which he had been reading. 'I thought you went to the sur-
face. To kill the dwarf!'
'No, most potent of sorcerers,' Lurk replied, adopting the form of
address that worked so well for Squiksquik. He understood now its
power. Thanquol seemed to swell visibly at the flattery and began to
preen his fur. 'While rushing to obey your most clever command, I
stumbled upon evidence of plotting and knew that only the great
Thanquol himself would have the intelligence to know how to deal
with it.'
'Plotting? Explain yourself! Hurry-hurry!'
Quickly, and leaving out only the details of how he came to be there,
Lurk outlined what he had overheard. Thanquol tilted his head to one
side and bared his fangs at the news. As he listened his tail began to
lash backwards and forwards, a sure sign that a skaven was agitated.
When Lurk was finished, Thanquol glared at him for so long and with
such an expression of piercing intelligence that Lurk feared his time
had come and that he was about to be blasted. But the grey seer merely
licked his lips, stroked his imposing horned head with one paw, and
said: 'You have done well, Lurk Snitchtongue. I must consider what you
have told me. Hold yourself ready to instantly obey my commands.'
Yes, most shrewd of supreme commanders.'
'And Snitchtongue-'
Yes, mightiest of sorcerers?'
'Say nothing of what you have told me, to anyone On pain of
instant and most painful annihilation.'
Yes! Yes! To hear is to obey, most merciful of potentates.'
* * *
Thanquol lolled back on the throne he had installed in this
makeshift command cave. He scratched his itching back against the
wood of the throne's back, then leaned his horned head forward on
his paw. That fawning sluggard Lurk had given him something to
consider indeed. So, as he had suspected, the farsqueaker explosion
had been no accident. When he thought how close he had come to
death on that day, rage and fear warred in the pit of Thanquol's
stomach. Had Heskit stood before him at this moment, Thanquol
would have blasted him into a thousand fragments, and let the
Horned Rat take the consequences.
And this news of Heskit's treachery gnawed at his bowels. He
fought to bring himself under control, knowing that such thinking
was dangerous, that to give way to his rage would lead to eventual
certain destruction. He had not reached his high position in
skavendom by giving way to such impulses. He told himself that he
would find other, more subtle ways of gratifying his thirst for right-
eous revenge. He would find other ways to pay back the treacherous
filth for his attempt on Thanquol's life.
And this new scheme of Heskit's - it was exactly the sort of thing
he would have expected from those machine-obsessed traitors at
Clan Skryre. Always lusting after new technologies and new
machines. Always willing to betray the skaven cause for their own
advancement. Always looking for ways to cheat their rightful leader
out of his well-deserved share of the credit.
But wait! Was it possible that Lurk Snitchtongue had concocted
this whole thing simply to ingratiate himself with Thanquol? The
grey seer immediately discounted this possibility. Lurk was simply
too stupid and unimaginative to come up with such a tale. Further-
more, it fitted with reports which Thanquol's other spies had
brought him, of secret massing of elite Clan Skryre troops, of secre-
tive comings and goings in the burrows that Heskit had
commandeered for his forces.
Thanquol considered the possible outcomes. The warp engineers
were planning on attacking the new College of Engineering, that
was obvious. They wanted to acquire steam-tanks and organ guns
for themselves. The grey seer did not doubt that Heskit could make
good on his boast of improving these human weapons a million-
fold. He knew that no other race could match skaven genius when
it came to constructing machines, and unfortunately, Clan Skryre
were the most brilliant mechanics of a brilliant race.
These new weapons would doubtless increase Clan Skryre's
power, and with that power would come increased influence on
the Council. Just the news that Heskit had succeeded in acquiring
the human weapons would bring a consequent increase in Clan
Skryre's prestige, perhaps even enough to have Thanquol called
back to Skavenblight and Heskit awarded the supreme leadership
of this army. Such an outcome was unthinkable. A clod like Hes-
kit could only lead this mighty force to disaster. It needed the
titanic intellect of Thanquol to ensure crushing victory over the
human scum. It was Thanquol's duty to his people to ensure that
he stayed in charge.
But what were his options? He had already decided that Heskit
was too powerful and too useful to be destroyed out of hand. So
what could he do? He could confront Heskit with the knowledge
of his treachery. Not good enough. The warp engineer could sim-
ply deny it and it would be Lurk's word against his. And doubtless
he would simply find another way forward with his plans to steal
the human machines when Thanquol's back was turned and his
mind occupied with more pressing affairs.
Thanquol cursed Heskit and all his treacherous, ill-natured
brood! Why did this have to happen now? He should be using his
towering intellect to deal with more pressing matters than treach-
erous underlings. He should be planning the inevitable conquest
of the mancity of Nuln and the destruction of Gotrek Gurnisson
and Felix Jaeger.
But wait! Perhaps this was the key. Perhaps the Horned Rat had
sent him the means to kill two babies with one bludgeon. A bril-
liant idea started to percolate into Thanquol's mind. What if he
used his two enemies as a weapon against Heskit? What if he sim-
ply informed them of where and when the warp engineer's attack
was to take place? Doubtless they would take steps to thwart the
attack.
Yes! Yes! The Slayer's foolish quest for glory, and the fact that
the pair were already discredited, would keep them from inform-
ing the stupid human authorities. Doubtless they would be
moved to interfere in their usual blundering fashion, and would
seek to stop Heskit's plan. They were too stupid ever to work out
that they were Thanquol's pawns, and even if they suspected a
trap it would not matter. The Slayer's own pride and his desire for
a heroic death would ensure his interest even in the face of over-
whelming odds. No! No! Particularly in the face of overwhelming
odds.
And this way, if anything went wrong, Thanquol's hands were
clean. No one would ever trace the Slayer's intervention back to
him, he could ensure that. The idea of using the pair to thwart his
other enemies' schemes was too good to resist.
He turned the scheme over from all sides, examining the pos-
sible outcomes and finding it foolproof. Either the dwarf and the
manling would foil the plot in their usual, brutally inept manner
or they would be killed trying to do so. Either outcome suited
Thanquol. If they foiled Heskit's plan, the warp engineer would
be discredited. If they died, Thanquol would have lost two potent
enemies and could still organise some nasty surprises for the
Clan Skryre warlocks on their return. In the best of all possible
worlds, the two sides would eliminate each other. Thanquol
helped himself to some warpstone snuff and consumed it with
glee. What a scheme! So intricate! So cunning! So truly skaven!
Here once more was proof of his own incredible genius.
 Now all he had to do was think of a way of letting the dwarf and
his henchman know about Heskit's plan. It would have to be com-
plex, subtle and ingenuous. Those half-witted fools would never
suspect that they were aiding their mightiest enemy.
'Message for you, sir,' said the small, grubby faced boy, holding out
his hand for payment. In his other hand, he clutched a piece of
coarse parchment.    .
Felix looked down at him and wondered if this was some sort of
trick. The beggar lads of Nuln were particularly known for their
ingenuity in parting fools from their money. Still, he might as well
pay attention. The lanterns had just been lit. It was early yet and the
Blind Pig had not even started to look like it would fill up this
evening.
'What's this? You do not look like a courier.'
'I dunno, sir. This funny-looking gentleman handed me this
scrap of paper and a copper penny and told I would get the same
again if I delivered it to the tall blond-furred bouncer at the Blind
Pig.'
'Blond-furred?'
'He spoke kind of funny, sir. Looked kind of funny, too. To tell
the truth, he smelled kind of funny an' all.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, his voice wasn't exactly normal. It was kind of high pitched
and squeaky. And he was wearing a monk's robe with a cowl that
covered his face. I thought his robes hadn't been washed for a long
time. They smelled like a dog or some furry animal had been sleep-
ing in them. I know, 'cause my dog, Uffie, used to-'
'Never mind Uffie right now. Was there anything else you noticed
about him?'
'Well, sir, he walked funny, all hunched forward...'
'Like an old man?'
'No, sir, he moved too quick for an old man. More like one of
the crippled beggars you see down on Cheap Street 'cept he moved
too quick to be crippled and... well, there's one more thing but I
was scared to tell you in case you thought I had been at the weird-
root.'
'And what was that?'
'Well, as he was moving away, I thought he had a snake under
his robes. I could see something long and snaky moving around.'
'Could it have been a tail? Like the tail of a rat?'
'It could have been, sir. It could have been. Do you think it
could have been a mutant, sir? One of the changed?' A note of
wonder and horror had entered the child's voice. He was obviously
thinking that he might just have had a close call.
'Perhaps. Now, where did you see this beggar?'
'Down Blind Alley. Not five minutes ago. I rushed over here
thinking I'd get myself a nice bit of pie with the copper piece you
was going to give me.'
Felix tossed the kid a copper and snatched the piece of paper
from his hand. He glanced across the bar to see if Gotrek was
about. The Slayer sat at a side table, his massive shoulders
hunched, clutching an ale in one brawny fist and his monstrous
axe in the other. Felix beckoned him over.
'What is it, manling?'
'I'll tell you on the way.'
'No sign of anything here now, manling,' Gotrek said, peering
down the alley. He shook his head and ran a brawny hand through
his huge dyed crest of hair. 'No scent either.'
Felix could not tell how the Slayer could smell anything over the
stench of the trash that filled Blind Alley, but he did not doubt that
Gotrek was telling the truth. He had seen too much evidence of the
keenness of the dwarf's senses in the past to doubt him now. Felix
kept his hand on the hilt of his sword and was ready to shout for
the watch at a moment's notice. Since the child had brought the
note, he had suspected an ambush. But there was no sign of one.
The skaven, if skaven it had been, had timed things well. It had
given itself plenty of time to get away.
Felix took another glance down the alley. There was not much to
see. Some light filtered in from the shop lanterns and tavern win-
dows of Cheap Street but not enough for him to make out more
than the outlines of rubbish, and the cracked and weather-eroded
walls of the buildings on either side of the alley.
This leads down into the Maze,' Gotrek said. 'There's a dozen
entries to the sewers down there. Our scuttling little friend has got
clean away by now.'
Felix considered the winding labyrinth of alleys which com-
prised the Maze. It was a haunt of the city's poorest and most
desperate wretches. He did not relish the prospect of visiting dur-
ing broad daylight, let alone trying to find a skaven there in the
darkness of this overcast and moonless evening. Gotrek was prob-
ably right anyway: if it was a skaven, it was in the sewers by now.
Felix backed out into the street and moved under the lantern that
illuminated an all-night pawnbroker's sign. He unfolded the coarse
paper and inspected the note.
The handwriting was odd. The letters were formed with jagged
edges, more like dwarf runes than the Imperial alphabet, but the
language was definitely Reikspiel, although poorly composed and
spelled. It read:
Frends - be warned! Evil ratmen of the trecherus skaven Man
Skryre - may they be poxed forever, espeshully that wicked feend
Heskit Wan Eye - plan to attak the Colledge of Ingineering this
nite during the dark of the moon. They wish to steel your secrets
for their own nefare-i-us porpoises. You must stop them or they
will be wan step closer to conquering the surface world,
Yoor frend.
Felix handed the letter to Gotrek. The Trollslayer read it and
crumpled it up in one brawny fist. He snorted derisively. 'A trap,
manling!'
'Maybe - but if so, why not simply lure us here and attack us?'
'Who can tell how the rats' minds work?'
'Maybe not all skaven are hostile. Maybe some of them want to
help us.'
'Maybe my grandmother was an elf.'
'All right. Maybe one faction has a grudge against another faction
and want us to settle it for them?'
'Why not settle it themselves?'
'I don't know. I'm just thinking aloud. Tonight is the Feast of Ver-
ena. There will only be a few people in the college. All the others
will be at the Countess Emmanuelle's Feast for the Guild. Perhaps
we should warn the watch.'
'And tell them what, manling? That a skaven sent us a note warn-
ing us his brother was going to burgle the Elector Countess's special
arsenal. Perhaps you've forgotten what happened the last time we
tried to warn anybody about the skaven.'
'So you're saying we should do nothing?'
'I'm not saying anything of the sort. I'm saying that we should
look into this ourselves and not count on getting any help from
anyone else.'
'What if it's a trap?'
'If it is, it is. A lot of skaven will die.'
'So might we.'
Then it will be a heroic death.'
'We'd best get back to the Blind Pig first. Heinz will be wonder-
ing where we've got to.'
'You delivered the note as instructed?' Grey Seer Thanquol asked.
Yes! Yes, most ingenuous of masters,' Lurk said.
'Good. You are dismissed. Hold yourself ready for further
instructions. If anyone asks you what you were doing on the surface,
tell them you were spying on the dwarf in preparation for killing
him. In a way, it will be the truth.'
'Yes, yes, cleverest of councillors.'
Thanquol rubbed his paws together with glee. He did not doubt
that the stupid dwarf and the hairless ape would fall into his cun-
ningly woven trap. His beautifully composed and lovingly crafted
message would see to that. Now all he had to do was wait and make
sure that, whatever happened, Heskit's warriors failed in their task.
And he knew just the way to do that.
Heskit surveyed his corps of warp engineers with pride. He
watched a team of warpfire throwers check their bulky and danger-
ous weapon, showing all the care of well-trained skaven engineers.
The smaller of the two lovingly banged the firebarrel with a spanner
to make sure it was full, while the other kept the dangerous nozzle
pointed at the ceiling most of the time, in case of accidents.
Bands of sweating slaves rested for a moment, their breath com-
ing in gasps, their tongues lolling out after long exertion. They had
laboured long and lovingly to prepare the way for this night's work.
They had spent many hours luring the sewer watch away from this
place, and days working with muffled picks to finish these struc-
tures. Now the ramps were all in place, and they were ready to
breach the surface and swarm out through the manburrow.
Heskit inspected their work with a well-trained professional eye.
During his apprenticeships, he had overseen the construction of scaf-
folding around the great skaven warships. Scaffolding that almost
never collapsed killing those upon it, Heskit thought with pride. It
had been the wonder of his burrow. Well, after tonight, his fellow
engineers would have even more to wonder about. He would surpass
Mekrit's invention of the farsqueaker, and do more to advance the
skaven cause than Ik had done with his invention of the portable tor-
menting machine. After tonight he would possess all the proudest
secrets of the race of man. And then he would improve them in a
thousand ways.
Heskit knew that he had picked his time well. Today was the Feast
of Verena. The human guards were but a skeleton watch compared to
their usual numbers, and doubtless were all drunk. Even now Clan
Eshin assassins were moving above, picking off the few sentries which
remained on duty. Soon it would be time to go forward with the plan.
A Poison Wind globadier hurried past, his face obscured by his
metallic gas-mask. Only the globadier's nervous darting eyes were vis-
ible through the quartz lenses. He clasped his glass sphere of
chemical death to his chest, protecting it against accidents the way a
mother bird might protect a precious egg.
Heskit's chronometer chimed thirteen times. He tugged its chain
and pulled the ornate brass device out of his fob pocket. He held it
to his ear, and was rewarded by the sound of loud ticking from the
lovingly crafted mechanism within. He flicked the chronometer open
and glanced at the face. It showed a little running skaven. Its feet
moved back and forth every heartbeat. Its long tail pointed to the
thirteenth hour, and so did the short stabbing sword it clutched. It
was exactly thirteen o' clock, to the hour, to the minute. Heskit turned
and gave the sign for the operation to begin.
Felix looked at the outside of the new College of Engineering. It was
a most impressive building, more like a fortress than any University
College he had ever been in. The tall, broad towers at each comer
would have been more at home on a castle than on a place of study.
All the windows at ground level were barred. There was only one way
in, through a massive archway, large enough for a horse-drawn car-
riage.
A soft thud behind him told him that Gotrek had arrived and most
likely fallen into one of the flower beds. He heard the dwarf curse in
his harsh, guttural tongue.
'Best be quiet!' Felix whispered. 'We really should not be here.'
It was true. Only authorised members of the Guild of Engineers
and Mechanics, their apprentices and members of the Imperial mili-
tary were allowed into this highly secret place, on pain of death or at
least a long stay in the dungeons of the Countess Emmanuelle's infa-
mous prison.
'The sentries are all too drunk to notice anything, manling. It's a
disgrace but it's what you expect from humans.'
Felix reached up and tugged his new cloak off the low wall. It was
ripped where the broken glass and nails set on top of the wall had
pierced it. Still, Felix thought sourly, better a ripped cloak than a
ripped hand. He glanced over at the sentry boxes beside the locked
iron gates and was forced to agree with Gotrek. It was a disgrace.
One of the sentries was so drunk that he was simply lying asleep
beside his post. Then Felix saw that there was something odd in the
man's posture and he stepped over cautiously to have a look. As he
did so, he saw more recumbent figures. Was it possible that all of
the sentries were drunk and asleep? He crept up for a closer look,
then ripped his sword from its scabbard.
The sentries were not drunk. They were dead. Each lay in a pool
of blood. One of them still had a knife sticking from his back. Felix
bent and examined it and immediately recognised the workman-
ship from his own encounter with the skaven assassins at the Blind
Pig.
'It looks like our friend was telling the truth,' he said to Gotrek,
who had joined him.
Then let us go take a look inside.'
'I was afraid you were going to say that.'
Heskit stalked the corridors of the college, surrounded by his
bodyguards. In a way this was a comforting place for him. He was
surrounded by familiar things: forges and benches and lathes and
braces, and all the tools familiar to engineers the world over, what-
ever their race. The smell of charcoal and metal wafted through the
place on the night breeze. Skaven seethed through the corridors like
an invading army, ransacking the place as they went. He hoped that
his lackey, Squiksquik, had managed to get into position in the cen-
tral armouries, otherwise all the choicest of loot would have
vanished.
To his right, he could see a rack of long muskets of a novel
design. He immediately rushed over and pulled one down. It had
the half-complete look of a new prototype. Its barrel was bound
with copper wire, and a small telescope had been mounted above
it. Nothing to get excited about, Heskit thought, simply an inferior
attempt at the jezzails his own bodyguard already carried. Without
access to warpstone for their powder mixes, the humans would
never be able to get the same range and hitting power. He hoped
that the other stuff here was more worthy of his consideration, or it
was going to be a wasted night.
'Most perspicuous of lords, this way,' he heard Squiksquik call.
Heskit strode down the long hall and found himself in another
machine shop. This was more like it, he thought, when he saw the
round stubby mass of the organ gun. This was worth having. He
strode over and ran his paws over the cold metal of one of the bar-
rels. Yes, indeed, this was worth having.
He looked down and saw the mechanism that would cause the
barrels to rotate and the striker which ignited the fuses at the same
time. Very clever! He wondered whether the tolerances of the metal
could withstand the use of warpstone powder. Most likely not but
then again, some of those new lead-warpstone alloys he had been
experimenting with might just do the trick. He had not had any
accidents with them since the last automated cannon had exploded
and killed ten of his assistants.
'Quick! Quick! Take it!' he instructed Squiksquik. His lackey
chittered a few commands and a party of Skryre slaves rushed for-
ward. There was a slight squeaking as they wheeled the gun away.
This did not bother Heskit. In fact, he found it quite relaxing.
He pushed on deeper into the halls, wondering what new toys he
would find in this strange and exciting place.
Felix fumbled with the door handle. He had been half hoping to
find it locked but it was already open, and he suspected he knew
why. There was a very familiar smell in the air, a combined scent of
musk and wet fur and sewer reek. No doubt about it, the skaven
were here.
'Perhaps we should go and inform the watch,' he whispered to
Gotrek.
'And tell them what? We just broke into your armoury and dis-
covered some skaven there. We weren't trying to steal anything,
honestly. We just wanted to look. Being hung as a thief is not my
idea of a mighty doom, manling.'
Then maybe we shouldn't have come here,' Felix muttered. He
was already regretting that he had agreed to this hare-brained
scheme. In the heat of the moment, carried along by the momen-
tum of events, it had seemed to possess a certain logic, but now he
could see that it was nothing but pure madness. They were in a
place where they had no business being, and most likely sur-
rounded by fierce skaven warriors. By the time any help could get to
them, they would in all probability be dead, and even in the
unlikely event they survived until help came, their rescuers would,
as Gotrek had suggested, most likely hang them as spies. How did
he get himself into these situations, Felix wondered?
'Are you going to stand there all night - or are you going to open
that door?'
Half expecting to feel a blade being thrust into his face, Felix
slowly and cautiously pushed the door open. Ahead of him a
long corridor loomed. It was dark save for the light that filtered
in from outside. Felix wished that he had a lantern with him.
There must be lights here, he thought - then realised that all they
would do was draw unwelcome attention.
Gotrek pushed past and stomped off down the corridor, mas-
sive axe held ready to deal death. There was nothing for it but to
follow him. Felix did not relish the prospect of being left in this
vast and echoing building on his own.
'There is a problem, most decisive and responsible of leaders,'
Squiksquik said quietly. Heskit turned and glared at his lieu-
tenant petulantly.
'Problem? What problem could there be, Squiksquik? Explain!
Quick! Quick!'
'Overseer Quee thinks that, now he has seen the steam-tank,
there might be some problems. He thinks that the supports
might not be strong enough to take the weight. It might be
unwise to take it down into the sewers.'
'Tell Overseer Quee to solve this problem quickly, otherwise
he will have to be replaced by someone more competent. We
must have this steam-tank! We must study the engines! We must
see how it works! Clan Skryre must possess this weapon.'
Heskit clambered up on top of the steam-tank. His followers
had lit the place with the green glow of warpstone lamps, the
better to see what they were doing. Just being on top of this
mighty machine made Heskit's tail stiffen. He put his paws on
his hips, struck a commanding posture and looked down on the
chamber.
He looked around at this, the largest of halls, the place where
steam-tanks were built. It was impressive. All the parts, lovingly
hand-crafted, lay on workbenches nearby. Huge schematics had
been pinned to a board on the wall for the guidance of appren-
tices. Overhead were all manner of pulleys, and wires and guy
ropes for lowering all the pieces into place. It was a tangled and
intricate enough web to cheer the heart of any skaven.
Nearby sat a partially assembled steam-tank, looking for all
the world like the half-devoured carcass of some Leviathan.
Above him were the galleries from where the masters could sur-
vey the work of their labourers and see that everything was done
properly. Yes, there were definitely some ideas here which could
be adapted to the skaven cause.
Heskit turned back and was soon lost in contemplation of the
huge mechanical monster, overwhelmed by the possibilities
hinted at in its design. Truly, the steam-tank was a most awesome
concept. He ran a paw over the riveted metal and felt his heart-
beat quicken. He could just see himself driving around in one of
these, only his would be bigger and better, with a warpstone-
powered engine and a warpfire thrower instead of a cannon.
Bullets would ping off the armour of the hull. Arrows would be
turned aside by the thickness of the walls. His foes would be
crushed to bloody pulp under him. He would have a periscope
to look out through so he wouldn't have to expose his head to
enemy fire, and he would have tracks instead of these silly
wheels so that he could pass over the roughest of terrain with
ease.
It was a design with which the skaven could conquer the
world, and he, Heskit One Eye, would be responsible for it.
Ahead Felix could see a huge open courtyard. In the centre of
the courtyard was a massive gaping pit, from which emerged the
familiar stench of the sewers. The courtyard was lit by eerie flick-
ering green lights. In their glow, Felix could see a horde of
rat-men scampering backwards and forwards between the pit
and the building proper. Each had a chest or a piece of machin-
ery over his shoulder. It looked like they were looting the whole
building. Felix wasn't sure what they were going to do. There
were simply too many of the skaven for them to overcome.
Heskit clambered down into the steam-tank and looked at the
controls. There was a small seat moulded to fit a human driver,
but the bulk of the chamber was taken up by a monstrous can-
non and a huge boiler. Doubtless the boiler provided power.
The controls were simplicity itself for a skaven of Heskit's
intelligence to figure out. This lever was forward; that lever was
reverse. The whistle could be used to make terrifying noises and
to relieve pressure on the boiler. This small wheel would let you
guide the steam-tank right and left, and this one would aim the
cannon. It was all too easy.
Suddenly Heskit knew exactly what he wanted to do, and since
he was a master warp engineer there was no one here who could
stop him. He was going to take this vehicle for a test drive, just to
make sure it worked. It would also save all the effort of carrying it
to the pit mouth and down into the sewers. He barked instructions
to summon two slaves and he soon had them loading up the boiler
with wood. Within minutes he had the engine under pressure and
was ready to go.
Heskit pulled the lever and the steam-tank lurched forward.
In the distance Felix heard a rumble like a dragon clearing its
throat. 'Sounds like a monster,' he whispered to Gotrek.
'Sounds like a steam engine more like, manling. We'd better
investigate.'
They hurried up the stairs and around the gallery above the
courtyard. Here and there lay the bodies of sentries, killed by the
same skaven blades as they had encountered earlier. Felix flinched
and kept his sword ready. At any moment, he expected to run into
a pack of fierce killers like those which had attacked him and Elissa
in his room the other night.
The sensation of speed and power was awesome. Heskit had never
experienced anything like it. He felt like he could crush anything
that got in his way, smash through any obstacle. With this one tank,
he could overcome any foe. Visions of huge armies, spearheaded by
warpstone-powered steam-tanks danced through his head. With
such a force manned by fierce skaven warriors, Clan Skryre could
conquer the world. And, of course, he, Heskit One Eye, would be
suitably rewarded for his genius in coming up with the plan. He
would see to that.
Heskit looked up to see where he was going. What was that fool-
ish Poison Wind globadier doing standing in front of him with a
look of panic on his face, Heskit wondered?
Felix emerged onto a gallery above a huge hall which seethed with
skaven. In the middle of the hall stood a gleaming new steam-tank.
Smoke billowed from its chimneys and even as he watched, Felix
saw that the vehicle was starting to move. It picked up speed fast
and ran over a small skaven who stood clutching something in front
of it. The skaven fell and something like a glass sphere rolled from
its hands. The sphere fell and shattered into a million pieces. As it
did so, a horrible cloud of greenish gas emerged. All of the rat-men
down below who were caught in the cloud clutched their throats
and fell, coughing blood. They lay on the floor, tails lashing, feet
kicking the ground. In a way they looked as if they were drowning.
He remembered Gotrek's tales of skaven gas weapons. He remem-
bered that awful moment during his fight with the skaven in the
sewers when he thought he had been gassed. He also remembered
that the Slayer had suggested the solution was a handkerchief soaked
in piss and placed over your mouth. He currently didn't have the time
or the inclination to test that theory. Felix noticed gratefully that the
gas appeared to be heavier than the surrounding air, and did not rise
far. Indeed, it was already starting to disperse.
¦
Was he dying, Heskit wondered? Or had he managed to hold his
breath in time? He did not know. His eyes watered from the gas
which had seeped in through the open hatch. The two skaven slaves
lay gurgling and gasping in front of him. Heskit knew he did not feel
any pain. Perhaps the heartbeat of warning he had got when he saw
the globadier had been enough. He had just enough time to snatch a
lungful of air and hold his breath. He had certainly not wasted it on
shouting a warning to the others. As a consequence of his own quick
thinking, he had managed to save himself.
Heskit peered out through the green murk with watering eyes, and
tried to guide the tank into the clear. Something bumped and
squished under the wheels and he thought he heard a howl of agony.
He ignored it and concentrated on staying alive. That was the most
important thing.
His lungs felt like they were bursting. His heart beat at three times
its usual rate. He had already squirted the musk of fear and soiled his
fine armour. He did not care. All that mattered now was that he did
not breathe until he saw clear air, and that he kept himself alive, in
spite of the treacherous attack of the foolish globadier.
All around him he heard sounds of confusion, of skaven shouting
orders, of barked commands, and weapons being brought to bear.
'We're under attack!' he heard Squiksquik shout. It wasn't until the
jezzail shots started thumping of the side of the tank that he realised
that the idiots thought that he was attacking them.
Felix watched in mounting confusion at the scene of carnage. The gas
had killed dozens of the skaven. The rest of the rat-men had turned on
the steam-tank. Several teams of skaven equipped with long rifles had
started taking pot-shots at the tank. Two weirdly equipped skaven
were manhandling a huge and very unwieldy-looking weapon into a
position where it could fire at the tank.
Was there still a human alive down there, and had he somehow
managed to get the war-engine to work? Was he even now fighting for
his life and in desperate need of help? Felix turned to consult with the
Slayer - and only then realised that Gotrek had gone. Felix could
guess where.
The skaven had manoeuvred their odd-looking weapon into
position. One of them crouched down with a barrel braced on its
back, the other wielding the connected gun. Suddenly a jet of
greenish flame gouted forth and sprayed towards the tank. It clung
to the metallic side panels, burning intensely, the flare illuminating
the whole chamber and making Felix stand out in stark relief on
the balcony. He knew this because a whole group of skaven were
suddenly pointing at him and chittering.
He had a terrible feeling that he knew what was going to happen
next.
Heskit closed his eyes and hoped that he would still be able to see
when he opened them. The heat was intense and the warpflames of
the fire thrower licked through the viewing slit of the steam-tank.
Heskit screamed and squirted the musk of fear again, soiling the seat
below him.
'Stop! Stop! Fools!' he shrieked. 'It is I, Heskit, your leader!'
If anyone heard him over the roar of the steam-tank, they gave no
sign. All was confusion and madness. It was possible that his ratkin
had lost sight of him in the confusion and thought he was a human
attacker. It was equally possible that some vilely ambitious under-
ling knew full well that he was in here and was taking this
opportunity to try and assassinate his superior.
In fact, the more Heskit thought of this second option, the
more likely it seemed to him. Those firethrower bearers, for exam-
ple, were not stopping their assault, despite his express command.
They might claim they could not hear him over the roar of the
engine but Heskit knew better. He could see it all so clearly now.
It was all part of a devilish plot to remove him from his rightful
office. He would not be in the least bit surprised if Grey Seer
Thanquol was behind the whole thing.
Filled with righteous vindictive anger, Heskit bared his fangs in
rage and steered the steam-tank directly at the warpfire throwers.
Too late, the treacherous vermin realised their peril and attempted
to scuttle aside. Heskit was rewarded by the crunch of their bones
under his wheels. Then there was a hideous crump as the barrel of
phosphorescent chemicals exploded.
Felix was trapped. Skaven were flowing out onto the balcony on
which he stood in a grim furry tide. There were dozens of them,
far more than he could fight. He did not doubt that he could take
out one or two of them on the narrow walkway but while he was
doing so others would come rushing up behind him and drive
their nasty little blades into his back. Damn Gotrek! Where was
the Slayer when he was needed?
As if in answer to his unspoken query, he heard a thunderous
bellow from below him. Risking a quick glance, Felix saw that the
Slayer had emerged into the room below, leaving a trail of dead and
dying rat-men behind him. A dripping wet rag was wrapped round
his face. Evidently the Slayer was taking no chances of being gassed
before he achieved his heroic death.
Also below him, Felix could see the steam-tank as it careened
onward. Blazing green flames raged around its wheels and along its
belly. It bumped and bounced through the workspace leaving a
comet trail behind it, crushing everything that got in its way. Then
it slewed around, coming almost to a stop, its front end facing in
the direction of the Slayer. Gotrek stood his ground, confronting the
massive machine, for all the world like an Estalian matador facing
a bull. All around the dwarf, panicked skaven scuttled for cover.
That was all that Felix had time to see, as the seething mass of
skaven bore down on him. He knew that if he stayed where he
was, he was dead. Seeing nothing else for it, he scabbarded his
sword, leapt up onto the banister and reached up to grab one of
the overhead lines. Swiftly he swung himself hand over hand until
he was out over the middle of the courtyard. Felix hung there for
a moment, getting his breath back.
Suddenly he felt the line begin to falter under his weight. He
risked a glance backwards and saw an evilly grinning skaven sawing
at the rope with his blade.
Oh no, thought Felix, as the line gave way with a snap.
Heskit could not believe his eyes. Was that a dwarf standing in
front of him brandishing a huge axe? How could there be a dwarf
here, in the middle of this manburrow? Had he accidentally taken
a whiff of the globadier's gas? Was he hallucinating? The whole
tank was getting warm, and not just from the boiler. Heskit was cer-
tain he could smell warpfire burning somewhere. And where had
all his lackeys gone? Surely the dwarf and the gas could not have
killed them all. Well, one thing was certain: no dwarf could survive
a face-to-face encounter with this steam-tank. Heskit upped the
acceleration and raced directly at Gotrek.
The line parted and Felix arced down towards the ground. He
saw that Gotrek was almost directly below him and that the
steam-tank was almost upon him. It looked like the Slayer was
about to be crushed to a bloody pulp beneath the wheels of the
blazing steam-tank. But at the last second, he stepped to one side
and his axe struck the side of the vehicle with a deep, resonant
clang like the tolling of a great bell.
Felix braced himself for a painful impact with the ground. Then
at the last second he realised that the arc of his trajectory was taking
him directly into the path of the steam-tank. It seemed all too likely
that he was going to end up beneath its wheels.
Heskit's head ached from the fumes and from the great ringing
echo inside the tank. And what had that second bump been against
the tank's side? He was beginning to regret that he had ever allowed
his lackeys to persuade him to get into this accursed death-trap.
Heads would roll once he brought the thing to a stop, that was cer-
tain!
He tugged hard on the braking lever and it came away in his
hands. Ahead of him, the wall of the building loomed. It
approached with appalling speed.
All the breath was knocked out of Felix's lungs as he slammed into
the top of the steam-tank. He felt himself start to slip. He could feel
the heat beginning to scorch the soles of his boots. He reached out
and grabbed for something to hold onto. His fingers caught the
edge of the open hatch. Using the leverage this gave him, he pulled
himself up and crouched on top of the speeding tank. He could see
the wall approaching quickly. He tried to throw himself clear but it
was too late. The force of the impact sent him tumbling headfirst
through the hatch and down into the interior of the burning steam-
tank.
There was a huge roar and a grinding sound as the steam-tank went
right through the brick wall. The whole tank shook and the smell of
burning intensified. Suddenly a heavy weight dropped on Heskit
and he found human hands scrabbling against his fur.
Felix flinched as the skaven bared huge jaws full of needle-sharp
teeth and snapped at him. This was a nightmare, thought Felix. He
was trapped, hanging upside down, in a tiny enclosed space, aboard
a speeding vehicle, with a hideous mutant monster trying to tear
out his throat. He pulled his head aside and lashed out with a fist,
catching the skaven on the snout. All around he noticed that steam
had started to billow and sparks had started to fly from the boiler.
The skaven lashed out at him. Razor-sharp daws tore his cheek.
Felix had a moment to be glad that the space was too confined for
the skaven to use its weapons. He let himself drop the whole way
into the cabin and landed with his full weight on the rat-man. The
two of them grappled and rolled around the cabin, hitting the con-
trol levers and sending the steam-tank skidding uncontrollably first
left and then right. Through the viewing slit, Felix caught sight of ter-
rified skaven running for cover. The steam engine was making weird
snorting sounds. The heat and humidity were appalling.
It was a ferocious brawl. Felix was much bigger and heavier but
the skaven had a horrible wiry strength and the advantage of pos-
sessing long sharp teeth.
Pain flared through Felix as it sank them into his shoulder. He felt
hot blood as it spurted through his shirt. With the pain and fear
came a terrible anger.
'Right, that's it!' Felix spat, getting his hands around the skaven's
throat and starting to squeeze. At the same time, he shoved the
skaven's head away from him and started to smash it into the side of
the steam-tank.
This was not a good night, Heskit One Eye thought, as the maniacal
human bashed his head against the steel wall for the third time. The
skaven could feel the strength draining out of him. There was no air
in his lungs and no way to breathe with those iron-strong human
hands around his throat. It was like being stuck in the gas once
more, only a hundred times worse. If only he hadn't been betrayed
by his worthless underlings, this would never have happened.
Over his attacker's shoulder, through the viewing slit, Heskit
could see the open mouth of the pit leading down into the sewers.
A mass of skaven were diving into it, fleeing from the scene of the
battle. The steam-tank, too, was heading right for it.
Felix had an awful sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as the
steam-tank lurched and tumbled. They must have hit an obstruction
or fallen into a pit, he thought, as he was thrown about the cabin.
This is it, he thought, I'm going to die. Suddenly the steam-tank
came to rest with a horrid gurgling splash, and the familiar stink of
the sewers filled Felix's nostrils.
His grip on the skaven's throat loosened and the thing took the
opportunity to break free. It scampered up and out of the hatch like
a ferret up a drainpipe. Judging by the flames coming from the
boiler, Felix thought he'd better do the same. Painfully he reached up
and pulled his battered frame up through the open hatch. He stood
perched on top of the steam-tank for a moment, glaring at the
skaven he had just fought.
As he had thought, the vehicle had fallen through the pit the skaven
had dug in the courtyard and was now sinking into the sewers. Smoke
and steam and flames flickered through the hatch below him, scorch-
ing his boots and setting his trousers to smouldering. The whole
steam-tank bucked and shuddered in the mire. All around him, Felix
could see a host of red eyes glittering in the dark. He was surrounded
by skaven.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire, he thought.
Where had all these warriors come from, Heskit wondered
dazedly? They should be up above fighting with the dwarf and his
human ally, not cowering down here away from the fight. Not that
it mattered right at this very moment. As a highly skilled warp engi-
neer, Heskit recognised all the signs of a very serious malfunction
in the steam-tank. He did not doubt that he had mere moments to
get clear before it exploded.
Fear lent his feet wings. He sprang out into the tightly packed
mass of skaven. Before they could react, he skittered across their
shoulders, trampling on their heads as he went. Even so, he knew
that he was not going to get clear in time. There was only one thing
for it.
Holding his snout, Heskit dived headlong into the sewer.
Judging by the speed with which the terrified skaven took off over
the heads of its fellows, Felix knew that something terrible was
about to happen. He had to act, right now. He sprang upwards,
grabbed the lip of the pit and pulled himself clear, just as the mass
of skaven swarmed forward over the steam-tank.
He felt claws rip the leg of his britches as one of the pack leaders
made a grab for him. Frantically he kicked out with his other foot,
and felt something break as his boot connected with teeth.
Looldng out into the greenly lit courtyard, he saw the Slayer jog-
ging towards him.
Felix pulled himself upright and raced for the dwarf, shouting:
'Get down! It's going to ex-'
Behind him there was an enormous thunderous roar and a
mighty flash like a lightning strike. A huge cloud of stinking smoke
billowed forth. The Shockwave threw Felix onto the ground hard. He
was vaguely aware of a number of skaven forms tumbling headlong
through the gloom around him. Then his head smacked into the
ground and consciousness left him.
When Felix pulled himself upright, Gotrek was standing nearby,
peering down into the mouth of the pit. All around them were
hideously mangled skaven corpses. Felix could not guess whether
they were the products of the explosion or Gotrek's efforts. Not that
it mattered. The result was the same in the end.
Behind him there was a sudden, mighty crash. Felix looked back
to see that the whole wall of the college had collapsed. Indeed,
peculiar greenish flames were lapping through the entire building.
Something told him that no amount of effort by fire-fighters was
going to extinguish that blaze until its sorcerous fury was spent.
He turned to look back at the Slayer, noticing for the first time
the huge splashes of blood which painted the dwarfs body and
dripped from his axe. Gotrek grinned and showed his missing teeth.
'Got most of them. The rest ran away,' he said in disgust. 'They
seemed to lose heart after I killed the first fifty.'
'Yes, but at what a price! We've burned the college to the ground!
Think of all that knowledge lost.'
'Colleges can be rebuilt, manling.' The Slayer tapped his head
with one brawny finger. 'Knowledge is in here. The masters and
apprentices survived. Things will go on.'
'We'd better go on and get out of here. The guard will be coming
soon.'
Wearily, they made their departure. Somewhere in the distance
the alarm bells were already tolling.
Heskit raised his head above the brown sludgy mass and spat out
a mouthful of rank sewer water. That had been too close for com-
fort, he thought. Only the fact that the jelly-like consistency of this
part of the flow had absorbed the shock of the blast had enabled
him to survive, he was sure. It looked like all the others were dead.
Still, he was alive, that was the main thing, he thought as he
padded along through the water with strokes of his paws and lashes
of his tail. Now all he had to do was find an explanation for this
fiasco which the cursed grey seer would accept. Because somehow
he was sure that Thanquol would know all about this night's work.
'Having shed some light on the disaster which befell
the College of Engineering in that accursed year, I
feel that I can move on to cover another topic. It was
during this period of my life that I acquired more
knowledge of the foul breed of rat-men known as skaven
than I ever wished or deemed advisable. Even the posses-
sion of such knowledge as I had would have been
considered cause enough for burning at the stake by our
more fanatically dedicated witch hunters. I have often
thought that if such people showed half the zeal in per-
secuting the real enemies of our society as they do in
pursuing innocent scholars, our world would be a safer
and happier place. Of course, the real enemies of our
society are a far more dangerous breed than innocent
scholars and have allies in far higher places. I leave my
readers to draw their own conclusions from that.'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
PLAGUE MONKS
OF PESTILENS
The man clutched his throat, gave a gurgling moan and keeled
over, froth pouring from his lips, vile green stuff oozing from his
nostrils. He lay on his back in a midden heap and frantically beat
the muddy pavement with his fists, then all the strength seemed to
leave him. His limbs twitched feebly in a final spasm of motion,
then he gave a last long groan and lay still.
The people in the street all around looked at each other in fright,
then raced away from the body as fast as they could. Beggars
crawled away from their resting places. The one-legged man hopped
away, almost dropping his crutch in his haste. Peddlers abandoned
their stalls; goodwives ducked back into their buildings and locked
their doors. Rich merchants urged their palanquin bearers to greater
speed. Within moments, the street was all but deserted. Throughout
the hubbub of the departing crowd ran one word - plague!
Felix Jaeger glanced around the suddenly empty street. It didn't
look like anyone else was going to help the poor devil, so it seemed
the job fell to him. He covered his mouth with his tattered cloak
and knelt beside the body. He laid a hand on the man's chest,
searching for a heartbeat.
It was too late. The man was beyond any help: he was dead. Felix
had enough experience of death to know.
'Felix, come away. I'm frightened.'
Felix looked up. Elissa stood nearby, her face pale and her eyes
wide. She ran a hand through her curly black hair, then brought it
back to her mouth.
'Nothing to be frightened of,' Felix said. 'The man is dead.'
'It's what killed him that scares me. It looks like he died of the
new plague.'
Felix stood up, superstitious fear filling his mind. For the first
time he was forced to consider the death he had just witnessed and
the reason why everyone else had fled.
Plagues were terrible things. They could strike anywhere, kill any-
one, rich or poor. No one knew what caused them. Some said the
dark influence of Chaos. Some said they were the wrath of the gods
on sinful humanity. The only certainty with plague was that there was
very little that you could do to save yourself once you caught it, save
pray. Such virulent diseases could baffle the best of physicians and
the most potent of mages. Felix stepped away from the body quickly
and moved to put his arm around Elissa reassuringly. She shied away,
as if he carried the contagion.
'I don't have the plague,' he said, hurt.
'You never know.'
Felix glanced down at the body and shivered.
'It certainly wasn't that poor soul's lucky day,' Elissa said.
'What do you mean?'
Take a look. There's a black rose on his tunic. He'd just been to
a funeral.'
'Well, now he's going to his own,' Felix said softly.
'That's the fourth death today from the plague that I've heard of,'
Heinz said when Felix told him the news. 'The lads in the bar are
talking about nothing else. They've a sweepstake going on how
many it will be by nightfall.'
In a way, Felix was glad of this news. For the past few days, the
citizens had talked of nothing but the burning down of the College
of Engineering. Most claimed it was sabotage perpetrated by Chaos
worshippers or the Bretonnians. Felix continually felt spasms of
guilt as he was reminded of his own participation in the event.
'What do you think?' Felix asked, looking around at how many
people were present. The bar was packed to capacity, and the
inevitable jostling was already causing friction. Felix felt certain
there would be trouble this evening.
'I put my money on it being ten. Last year, when the Red Pox
came, there were twenty people gone by noon. But then the Red Pox
was a nasty one. Worst in twenty years. Still, you never know - this
one might be worse before it's done.'
'I meant, what do you think caused it?' Felix said. 'How do you
think it spreads?'
'I'm not a physician, Felix, I'm a bartender. I guess that it's spread
by tinkers and witches. That's what my old wife Lotte used to say.'
'Do you think I could have caught it from that poor man?'
'Maybe. I wouldn't worry. When Old Man Morr pulls your name
out of his big black hat, there's nothing you can do about it, that's
what I think. One thing's for sure, though.'
'What's that?'
'It's good for business. Soon as plague comes, people hit the tav-
erns. They want to forget about it as quick as they can.'
'Maybe they want to die drunk.'
'There's worse ways to die, young Felix.'
'That there is.'
'Well, you'd better get over there and stop those Tileans drawing
knives on each other, or we'll soon have a graphic demonstration of
just that.'
'I'll deal with it.'
Felix moved to hastily intervene in the dispute. In a few seconds
he had far more immediate dangers to worry about than catching
the plague.
'So you're not worried about the plague?' Felix said, ducking a
swing from a drunken mercenary.
'Never catch the things, manling,' Gotrek Gurnisson replied,
grabbing the mercenary's ear, pulling his head down level with the
dwarfs own and then dropping the man with a headbutt which
sent blood from the man's bleeding nose spraying outwards to add
a new and brighter tint to the Slayer's great crest of red-dyed hair.
'Been right through a dozen sieges. Humans dropped like flies; I was
fine. Dwarfs don't usually get the plague. We leave that to less hardy
races like elves and men.'
Felix caught two of the mercenary's squabbling comrades by the
scruffs of their necks and hauled them upright. Gotrek grabbed one,
Felix grabbed the other and they ran them out through the swing-
ing doors into the muddy streets.
'Worst thing I've ever had was a bad hangover,' Gotrek said. 'And
don't come back!' he bellowed out into the street.
Felix turned to survey the bar. As Heinz had predicted, it was full.
Slumming nobles mingled with half the cut-throats and rakehells of
the city. A big gang of mercenaries fresh in from the Middenheim
caravan route were spending their money like there was going to be
no tomorrow.
Maybe they were right, Felix thought; maybe there wouldn't be a
tomorrow. Maybe all the streetcorner seers were right. Maybe the
end of the world was coming. Certainly the world had ended today,
as far as that man who had died in the street was concerned.
In the far corner, he could see that Elissa was talking to a
brawny young man garbed in the rough tunic and leggings of a
peasant. Their conversation became animated for a moment, then
Elissa turned to leave. As she did so, the youth reached out and
grabbed her wrist. Felix began to move over to intervene. Being
pawed was an occupational hazard for the serving wenches but he
didn't like it happening to Elissa. She turned and said something
to the youth. His hand opened and he let go immediately, a look
of something like shock on his face. Elissa left him there, his
mouth hanging open and a pained look in his eyes.
Elissa hurried past, chin up, carrying a tray full of empty tankards.
Felix caught her by the arm, turned her around, kissed her cheek.
'I don't have the plague,' he said, but she still wriggled away.
Felix could hear the word 'plague' being discussed at every table.
It was as if there were no other topic of conversation in the whole
blasted city.
'Really, I don't,' Felix added softly. He turned around and noticed
that the youth who had been talking to Elissa was staring at him
with a look of anger in his eyes. Felix was tempted to go over and talk
to him but before he could, the young peasant got up and stalked
none too steadily to the door.
'I know you don't have the plague,' Elissa said, snuggling closer to
Felix on the pallet they shared. She picked up a piece of straw which
had burst out of the hole in the mattress and began to tickle him
under the nose with it. 'You don't have to keep telling me. Really, I
wish you'd just shut up about it.'
'Maybe I'm trying to reassure myself,' he said, grabbing her wrist
and immobilising her hand. He reached over with his other hand
and began to tickle her. 'Who was that you were talking to earlier?'
he asked.
'When?'
'Down in the bar. A young man. Looked straight off the farm.'
'Oh, you saw him, then?' she asked, her voice all feigned inno-
cence.
'Apparently so.'
That was Hans.'
'And who is Hans?' Felix said levelly.
'He's just a friend.'
'He didn't seem to think so, judging by the look he gave me.'
'We used to go out together back in my village but he was very
jealous and he had a terrible temper.'
'He hit you?'
'No, he hit any man who looked at me in what he thought was
the wrong way. The village elders got fed up with it and put him in
the stocks. After that he ran away to the city, to look for his fortune,
he said.'
'Is that why you came here, to find him?'
'Maybe. It was a long time ago and Nuln's a big place. I never saw
him again, until tonight, when he came into the Pig. He hasn't
changed much.'
'You were close?'
'Once.'
'Not now?'
'No.' Elissa looked at him seriously. 'You ask a lot of questions,
Felix Jaeger.'
'Then stop me asking,' he said and began to kiss her hungrily. But
in his mind, he was still wondering about Elissa and Hans and what
had gone on between them.
.
Grey Seer Thanquol helped himself to another pinch of warpstone
snuff. The brain-blastingly potent drug sent a charge of pure energy
through his body, and his tail stiffened in ecstatic joy. He basked in
the warm glow of triumph.
His intricately woven scheme had succeeded and his rival Hes-
kit One Eye's plan to seize all of the technological secrets of the
human College of Engineering had been thwarted. Thanquol bared
his fangs in a death's head grin when he considered Heskit's dis-
comfiture. He had made the proud warp engineer grovel in the dirt
before his whole army while he explained what he had been doing.
He had berated Heskit for almost jeopardising the whole glorious
campaign to assault Nuln by his ill-considered actions, and sent
him slinking off with his tail between his legs.
Now Heskit had retired to his chambers to sulk, while he waited
for reinforcements to arrive from Skavenblight to replace the war-
riors he had lost on the surface. With any luck no new warriors
would come. Heskit might even be recalled to Skavenblight to
explain his actions to his superiors. Perhaps, Thanquol thought,
with a word in the right ear this course of action could be encour-
aged.
The curtain which separated Thanquol's private burrow from the
rest of the Underways was wrenched open and a small skaven
entered the chamber.
Reflexively Thanquol sprang back behind his throne. The eerie
glow of dark magic surrounded his paw as he summoned the energy
to blast the interloper to atoms, but then he saw that it was only
Lurk Snitchtongue, and he stayed his spell for a moment.
'Grave news, most potent of potentates!' Lurk chittered, then fell
silent as he noticed the aura of magic which surrounded the grey
seer. 'No! No! Most merciful of masters, don't kill me! Don't!
Don't!'
'Never, on pain of death most excruciating, ever burst into my
chambers unannounced again,' Thanquol said, not relaxing his vig-
ilance for a moment. After all, you could never tell when an
assassination attempt might happen. Jealous rivals were every-
where.
'Yes! Yes, most perceptive of seers. Never again shall it happen.
Only...'
'Only what?'
'Only I bring most important tidings, great one.'
'What would those be?'
'I have heard rumours-'
'Rumours? Do not barge into my sacred chambers and talk to me
about rumours!'
'Rumours from a usually reliable source, greatest of authorities.'
Thanquol nodded. That was different. Over the past few days
Thanquol had come to have a certain respect for Lurk's host of
informants. The little skaven had a talent for ferreting out informa-
tion that rivalled even Thanquol's... almost. 'Go on. Speak! Speak!
Waste not my precious time!'
'Yes! Yes! I have heard rumours that Vilebroth Null and his chief
acolytes have left the Underways and went surfacewards to the
mancity of Nuln, there to establish a secret burrow.'
What could the Clan Pestilens abbot be up to, thought
Thanquol, his mind reeling? What did this signify? It inevitably
meant some sort of treachery to the sacred skaven cause, some
scheme to grab the glory that was rightfully Thanquol's. 'Go on!'
'It may be that they took with them the Cauldron of a Thousand
Poxes!'
Oh no, thought Thanquol. The cauldron was one of the most
hideously powerful artefacts that Clan Pestilens was thought to pos-
sess. Since early runthood, Thanquol had heard dire tales of its
powers. It was said to be the means of infallibly brewing terrible dis-
eases, an artefact stolen from a temple of the Plague God, Nurgle,
back when the world was young, and reconsecrated to the service of
the Horned Rat.
If the cauldron was on the surface somewhere, that could only
mean Vilebroth Null meant to start a plague among the humans.
Under normal circumstances, Thanquol would have been only
too pleased by such an eventuality - just as long as he was a thou-
sand leagues away! Clan Pestilens plagues had a habit of running
out of control, of afflicting skaven as well as their intended vic-
tims. Only the plague monks themselves seemed immune. Many
seemingly assured skaven triumphs had been undermined by just
this occurrence. Now Clan Pestilens were only supposed to
unleash their creations by special authorisation of the Council of
The last thing Thanquol wanted at this moment was his army
destroyed by a runaway plague. He considered the implications
still more. Of course, the council did not argue with success. Per-
haps the plague might succeed in weakening the humans without
afflicting the skaven horde. But if it succeeded, the Council of Thir-
teen might extend its favour to Vilebroth Null, and withdraw its
patronage from Thanquol. Null might even be rewarded with the
leadership of the invasion force.
Thanquol considered. What else could be going on here? If the
scheme was an honest effort to help the invasion, why had
Thanquol not been informed? He, after all, was supreme comman-
der. No - this had to be some sinister scheme of Null's to seize
power. Something would have to be done about this treachery and
this blatant defiance of the Council of Thirteen's edicts.
Then another thought struck Thanquol. His agents on the sur-
face had already reported tales of some new and dreadful disease
spreading among the human burrows. Undoubtedly Vilebroth
Null had already begun to implement his wicked plan. There was
no time to waste!
'Quick! Quick! Where did those treacherous vermin go?'
'I know not, most lordly of lords. My agents could not say!'
'Run! Quick! Quick! Scuttle off and find out.'
'At once, most decisive of leaders!'
'Wait! Wait! Before you go, bring me parchment and pen. I have
an idea.'
'You sneezed!' Elissa said.
'Did not!' Felix said, well aware that he was lying. His eyes felt
puffy and his nose was dripping. He was sweating a little too. And
was that the first faint tickle of a sore throat he felt?
Elissa began to cough hackingly. She covered her mouth with
one hand but her whole body shook.
'You coughed,' Felix said, and wished that he had not. Tears had
started to appear in the corner of the girl's eyes.
'Oh Felix,' she said. 'Do you think we have the plague?'
'No. Absolutely not,' Felix replied, but in his heart of hearts he
was far from certain. Cold dread clutched at him. 'Get dressed,' he
said. 'We'll go and see a physician.'
The doctor was a busy man today; that much was obvious, thought
Felix. There had been a queue stretching halfway around the block
from his small and dingy office. It seemed like half the city was
there, coughing and wheezing and hawking and spitting into the
street. There was an air of barely suppressed panic. Once or twice
Felix had seen people come to blows.
This was useless, Felix decided. They would never see a physician
today under these conditions, and the aisles of the Temple of
Shallya were full of supplicants. There had to be a better way.
'Come on. I have an idea,' he said, grabbing Elissa by her hand
and pulling her from the queue.
'No, Felix, I want to see the doctor.'
You will - don't worry.'
'Felix! What are you doing here?' Otto did not look pleased. In
fact, he had not looked pleased since Felix had refused his offer of
returning to the family business and, instead, started work in the
Blind Pig. Felix looked at his brother keenly. Otto was dressed par-
ticularly richly today in a gown of purple brocade trimmed with
ermine, and Felix felt his own ragged appearance keenly. It had
taken him nearly ten minutes to convince the clerks to let him in
and see his brother.
'I thought you might be able to help me.' Felix sniffed. There was
a strange scent in the room, of spices and the sort of flowers that
one usually only smelled at funerals. Felix wondered where it had
come from.
'I'll do what I can, of course.' Otto regarded him warily.
Ever the merchant, thought Felix, waiting to see what price was
going to be asked.
'I need to see a doctor.'
Otto's eyes darted from Felix to Elissa and back to Felix again.
Felix could almost see the thoughts forming behind his brow.
'You haven't... got this girl into trouble, have you?'
Felix laughed for the first time that day. 'No.'
'Then what's the problem?'
Quickly Felix told his brother about the man who had died in the
streets, about his own symptoms and the huge queues at the doctor's
and the Temple of Shallya. Otto steepled his fingers and listened
attentively, occasionally fumbling with a brass pomander which he
lifted to his nose and breathed deeply from. At once Felix identified
the source of the smell in the chamber.
'What's that?' he asked.
'A pomander of wildroot and silverspice from Far Cathay. The
vapours are a sovereign remedy for all airborne fluxes and evil
humours, or so Doctor Drexler assures me. Perhaps you'd like to try it?'
He unhooked the chain from around his neck and extended the
small perforated sphere to Felix. The smell was very strong. He
politely handed it to Elissa. She placed it beneath her nostrils
inhaled deeply and began to cough.
'It certainly clears the nostrils,' she gasped, eyes watering.
Felix took the pomander and breathed deeply. He immediately
understood what Elissa had meant. The vapours cut through the air
like a knife. They had a sharp, minty tang and almost at once a feel-
ing of warmth spread through his head and chest. His nose felt
clearer and his breathing came easier.
'Very good,' he gasped, returning the device. 'But can you help us
see a physician?'
Otto pursed his lips primly. 'Of course, Felix. You are my brother.'
'And Elissa?'
'Her too.'
¦
It's amazing how money smoothes all paths, Felix thought, looking
around Doctor Drexler's chambers. Without the use of Otto's name,
he doubted the servant would have let him through the doors of the
doctor's luxuriously appointed townhouse. Felix had to admit that
it was quite a place.
On the oak-panelled walls were framed certificates from the Uni-
versities of Nuln, Altdorf and Marienberg, as well as hand-written
testimonials from maybe half the crowned heads of the Empire. A
massive portrait of the good doctor painted by the famous Klein-
mann beamed down impressively from the middle of them all. Of
course, for the fees that he charged, Drexler could certainly afford
the services of the great portrait artist.
Felix glanced over the doorway. The doctor and Elissa were in his
consulting room. Felix had been left outside for the moment. He
rose from the comfortable leather armchair and looked around.
Along one wall was a collection of large glass jars which would
not have been out of place in an alchemist's shop. The bookshelves
were lined with musty leather-bound tomes. Felix picked one up. It
was Johannes Voorman's Der Natur Malorum. A first edition, no less.
The pages had been cut, which meant that someone around here
had read it. It wasn't just window-dressing, straight from the book-
binders. Felix examined the other titles and was surprised to
discover that only half of them were medical or alchemical in
nature. The rest dealt with a variety of subjects, from natural history
to the motion of the Spheres. It seemed that the doctor was indeed
a well-read man.
'You are a scholar, Herr Jaeger?'
Felix turned to find that Drexler had emerged from the consult-
ing room. He was a short, slender man with a narrow, friendly face
and a short, well-trimmed beard. He looked more like a successful
merchant than a doctor. His robes were as rich as Otto's and there
was not a sign of blood stains anywhere. Felix could not even see
the traditional pot of leeches.
'I've read a little,' he admitted.
'That is good. A man should always improve his mind whenever
there is an opportunity.'
'How is Elissa?'
Drexler took off his glasses and breathed on them, then polished
them on the hem of his robe. He beamed reassuringly. 'She is fine.
She has a summer cold. That is all.'
Felix understood why the rich were so willing to pay for the ser-
vices of this man. There was something hugely reassuring about his
quiet soft-spoken voice and his calm, certain smile. 'Not... not the
plague then?'
'No. Not the plague. No buboes. No lesions. No suppurating
ulcers of the sldn. None of the usual symptoms of any of the greater
plagues. Of that I am sure.'
Elissa emerged from the consulting room. She smiled at Felix. He
forced himself to smile back. 'I understand that you were exposed
to a plague bearer yesterday, Herr Jaeger,' the doctor said, suddenly
all seriousness.
'Yes.'
'Best have a look at you then. Let me see your arm.'
For the next few minutes the doctor performed all manner of
arcane rituals the like of which Felix had never seen. He touched his
wrist and counted, while keeping track of a chronometer on the
wall. He tapped Felix's chest painfully. He looked into Felix's eyes
with a magnifying glass.
This was not what Felix had expected. Where were the scalpels,
and unguents, and leeches? Was this man some sort of charlatan?
He was certainly most unlike any doctor or barber Felix had ever
encountered. His robes were not filthy and crusted with dried
blood, for one thing. And the man was tanned, unusually so for a
man who spent most of his life indoors. Felix mentioned this fact
and Drexler looked at him sharply.
'I have spent time in Araby,' Drexler said. 'I studied medicine at
the great School at Kah Sabar.'
Felix looked at the wall. There was no diploma there from any
Arabic university. Drexler obviously understood his train of
thought, for he laughed. 'They do not give degrees in Kah Sabar! By
the time you leave you are either a healer or you are not. If you are
not, no piece of paper will make you one.'
'A fair point. But what did you learn there that you could not
learn here in the Empire?'
Like all of its citizens Felix considered the Empire to be the most
advanced and enlightened human nation on the face of the planet.
He could not conceive that there was anything the Arabs had to
teach one of its people. The elves and dwarfs, certainly - but not the
Arabs.
'Many things, my friend. Including the fact that we have no
monopoly on wisdom and that much of what our doctors teach is
simply wrong.'
'For example?'
'Well... I do not bleed my patients. It does more harm than
good.'
Felix was at once relieved and shocked. Relieved because like
most people he dreaded the physician's scalpel. Shocked because
the man was obviously a charlatan! Everybody knew that bleeding
was essential to release the foul humours in the blood and speed
the patient's recovery. And yet, Otto had claimed that this man was
the best doctor in Nuln and had cured more people than all the
other surgeon-barbers put together. Furthermore, Drexler did seem
like a profoundly civilised and educated man.
'Do you think I have the plague?' Felix asked suddenly, surprised at
the fear and anticipation that filled him as he waited for Drexler's reply.
'No, Herr Jaeger, I do not. I think you have a slight cold, nothing
more. I think most of the people in this city who think they have
the plague probably have the same, and I think that the panic such
beliefs cause will be more harmful than the plague itself.'
'You don't think the plague is real, then?'
'Oh I certainly believe it's real. I think many people will die from
it, as the summer heat comes on, and more people come in from
the country. But I know you do not have it, nor do any of the
wealthy people who come to see me. If you did, you would already
be dead or dying.'
That would make it easy to diagnose,' Felix said dryly. Drexler
laughed again.
'I will give you and Fraulein Elissa the same herbal pomanders as
I gave your brother and his family. The herbs are a protection against
plague emanations, and I have cast a few spells on them as well.'
'You are a magician as well as a doctor, then?'
'I am a healer, Herr Jaeger, and I use whatever means best help
my patients. I dabble in enchantments of a protective sort. I cannot
utterly guarantee their effectiveness, you understand, but they
should help if you are exposed to the plague.'
'I thank you for that.'
'Don't thank me, Herr Jaeger. Thank your brother, after all he is
paying my bill.'
Just as Felix turned to go, he noticed that Drexler was staring at
him hard. His face had turned pale and his eyes hard.
'What is it?' Felix asked.
The... the sword you carry. Would you mind telling me where
you got it?'
'Not at all. It belonged to a friend, a Templar of the Fiery Heart
named Aldred. He died and I took it, hoping one day to return it to
his order. Why do you ask?'
'You were a friend of Aldred's?'
'We travelled together in the Border Princes. He was on a quest
when he died.'
'I knew Aldred. We were friends for a long time. We studied in the
Sigmarite Seminary together. I had not heard word of him in a long
time.'
Then I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad news to you.'
'He died well?'
'He died like a hero.'
'It is what he would have wanted. I'm sorry to have bothered you
with this, Herr Jaeger.'
'No, I am sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.'
'He seemed like a very nice man,' Elissa said. 'And so wise. Very reas-
suring.'
'What did you say?'
Felix looked up at her. He was disturbed by the coincidence that
Drexler had known the dead Templar, and he felt vaguely guilty about
not having made a greater effort to return the blade. Still, it was a very
fine weapon, and it had saved his life on more than one occasion.
'I said, he was very reassuring.'
Very.' Felix looked at her sourly. She had been singing the doc-
tor's praises all the way back to the Blind Pig and her hand had
never strayed very far from the herbal pomander. Felix wondered if
it was possible that he was jealous. He actually agreed with the
woman but admitting it was difficult for some reason. Elissa
seemed to sense this. She looked up at him and smiled teasingly.
'Why Felix, are you jealous?'
Why did women seem to have such an uncanny instinct for these
things, he wondered - even as he muttered his denials.
* * *
Gotrek looked up as they entered the tavern. He held a rolled tube in
one massive fist. He tossed it straight at Felix.
'Catch,' he said.
Felix snatched the tube out of the air and recognised it at once for
what it was. The parchment was of the same crude weave as the earlier
message they had received, the one which had warned them of the
skaven attack on the College of Engineering. He hastily unrolled it,
and was not at all surprised to find that it had been written in the same
semi-literate scrawl:
Frends - be warned!! The evil trechrus ratmen of Klan Pestilens
do plot to spred playgue in yoor city, may the Homed Rat gnaw
there entrails for it. 1 do not no wher or how they plan to do this. I
kan only tell yoo to be ware of the Kaldrun of a thousand poxes.
Yoor frend.
'It was delivered when you were out,' Gotrek said.
'Same messenger?'
'No, another beggar. Claims it was given to him by a monk.'
'You believe him?'
'I saw no reason not to, manling. I got him to show me the place
where he had met this monk. It was close to spot where the last mes-
sage was delivered.'
You think we should check out the sewers in that area?'
'What are you talking about, Felix?' Elissa asked.
'Skaven,' Gotrek said ferociously, and the girl's face went pale.
'Not those creatures which attacked the inn the other night?'
The same.'
'What do they have to do with you and Felix?'
'I do not know, girl. I wish I did. It seems like we have become
involved in some feud among them.'
'I wish you had not told me that.'
'I wish you had not told her that,' Felix said.
'Do you think they will attack the Pig again?' Elissa asked, glanc-
ing at the doors and windows as if she expected an attack at any
second.
'I doubt it,' Gotrek said. 'And if they do, we'll just slaughter them
again.'
Elissa sat down in a chair near to the Slayer. He cocked his head to
one side and smiled, showing several missing teeth. 'Do not worry,
girl. Nothing will harm you.'
Gotrek was not normally what Felix would consider a reassuring
sight, but his words seemed to calm Elissa.
'Do you think the skaven could have anything to do with this new
plague?' Felix whispered, hoping that no one could overhear him.
'Our ratty friend would like us to believe this.'
'Then why hasn't he told us any more?'
'Perhaps he does not know any more himself, manling.'
Thanquol stared into his divining crystal. It was no use. He had no
luck locating the plague monks and their accursed cauldron, and
that in itself was not reassuring. A seer of his prowess, having
invoked the proper rituals and made obeisance in the correct way to
the Horned Rat, should have been able to detect an artefact of its
power easily. Instead he had found no trace of it or its bearers any-
where. It suggested to Thanquol's keen mind that they were using
magic of their own to cover their tracks. He knew that Vilebroth
Null was a powerful sorcerer in his own right, and must have
invoked spells of bafflement. Further proof of his treachery - as if
any were needed!
Of course the traitor would claim that he had used the magic to
escape detection by the human authorities, but Thanquol could see
through such transparent ruses. He had not been born yesterday.
The plague monks were simply trying to keep themselves hidden
from their rightful leader until they could implement their plan and
claim unwarranted glory.
Thanquol knew he must prevent this eventuality at all costs - as
well as enforcing the Council of Thirteen's edict, of course. He
would simply have to find another way of locating his prey. He
wondered if the dwarf and his human ally had taken any action yet.
Or were they too stupid to do anything without prompting from
Thanquol?
Felix hurried through the darkness, his cloak wrapped around
him. He stopped to cast a glance over his shoulder and to fumble
at the pomander full of herbs at his throat. The smell of some
fresh night soil which had been cast from the windows high above
assaulted his nostrils. He dreaded putting his foot in it as much as
he dreaded stumbling into one of the heaps of rubbish that lay
decomposing in the street.
Why were all the houses not connected to the sewers, he won-
dered? Why did people still insist on dropping their rubbish and
filth into the streets? He realised that his long trek through the
wilderness with Gotrek had changed him. Until then he had been
a lifelong city dweller and would never even have noticed the trash
which packed the city streets. He paused for a moment to listen.
Was that the distant echo of footsteps? Was he being followed?
He strained his ears for any noise but heard nothing.
He was not reassured by the silence. This was the wealthiest
quarter of Nuln, but not even the rich went abroad in the dark-
ness without a full quota of bodyguards. Robbers and footpads
were everywhere. It was not just the prospect of normal everyday
robbery that bothered Felix. Ever since the night of the skaven
attack he had dreaded another ambush by the rat-men assassins.
He felt certain that he had survived their last assault by pure luck
alone, and he was all too aware how quickly someone's luck
could change.
Still, he felt the potential gravity of the situation warranted
risking these benighted streets. He needed help and he knew of
only one source that might be able to provide the sort of aid he
required. The door he sought was directly ahead of him. Drexler
was an expert on diseases and he might be able to tell Felix
something useful, if the skaven really were behind the current
outbreak of plague. He knew that the man would most likely
think him mad, but he was prepared to take that chance. He was
out of his depth, dealing with an enemy that could wield nox-
ious plagues the way a man might wield a sword. What he
needed was knowledge, and Drexler impressed him as the man
who might have it.
He reached up and pulled the handle of the doorbell. He
noticed that it was moulded in the shape of a grinning gargoyle's
head. In and of itself this was not unusual, but the appearance
was disturbing here and now amid the night and fog. He heard
footsteps from within the building and a peephole within the
door rattled open. A faint glimmer of light appeared, level with
Felix's eye.
'Who is it?' asked a voice. Felix recognised it as belonging to
Drexler's servant.
'Felix Jaeger. I need to see Doctor Drexler.'
'Is it an emergency?'
Felix considered for a moment before replying, 'Yes!'
'Stand away from the door and be warned. We have firearms
within.'
Felix did as he was told. He heard huge bolts being thrown
and the barking of very large dogs. It was apparent that the physi-
cian took no chances with his own safety, and Felix in no way
blamed him for this. Such precautions were only sensible in the
great cities of the Empire.
'Throw back your cowl and stand where I can see you.'
Felix did as he was told and the beam of a lantern was shone
full on his face. He saw that the old man had recognised him.
'Sorry, Herr Jaeger,' the manservant said. 'You can't be too care-
ful these days.'
'I quite agree,' Felix said. 'Now please take me to your master. I
have urgent business with him.'
Drexler sat by the fire in a huge study. The flicker of the flames
underlit his face and made it look vaguely daemonic. He leaned
forward with a poker and prodded the glowing coals until they
collapsed, then added more from the bucket beside the fireplace.
When he looked up, the flames were reflected in his glasses. The
effect was eerie.
'Now, how can I help you, Herr Jaeger?' he said calmly, then
smiled. 'You do not appear to be ill. Is it the girl?'
Felix glanced around the room. The servant had already
retreated, the thick Arabian rugs absorbing his footsteps. It was an
impressive chamber, even larger than his father's library in Altdorf
and with a far greater selection of books. Felix's keen eyes sought
out dark corners as if he half expected to find enemies there, then
he turned and looked directly at Drexler.
'What do you know of the skaven?' he asked bluntly.
Drexler stiffened for a moment and then carefully placed his
poker back in the stand. He took off his glasses, polished them on
the cuff of his robe and gave every appearance of serious consider-
ation to Felix's question.
They are a race of rat-men, considered to be extinct by many
scholars. Spengler thinks they were a sub-breed of human mutant.
Leiber theorised that they might be the product of ancient sorcery.
It is said that in ancient times they warred with the dwarfs but...'
'I know they are not extinct.'
Drexler looked at Felix sharply. 'You know?'
'Yes. I have fought with them. They are here. In Nuln.'
Drexler sat back in his chair, placed his spectacles on the bridge
of his nose and gripped an arm of the chair with each hand. 'Please
be seated. You interest me.'
Felix allowed himself to slump down in the chair facing
Drexler's. The heat from the fire had warmed one arm of it and
made him uncomfortable. He pushed it away from the hearth
slightly, before he started to speak. He told Drexler of his time in
the sewer watch and their encounter with the rat-men in the tun-
nels beneath the city. He omitted only the fact that they had
broken into the house of Fritz von Halstadt and killed him. He
spoke of the skaven attack on the Blind Pig which he presumed
was some sort of revenge attempt by the rat-men. He left out any
mention that he and Gotrek had also fought with the rat-men
within the College of Engineering on the night it had been
burned to the ground. Drexler watched him with increasing
astonishment. When Felix had finished, he spoke.
'Herr Jaeger, if all this is true, why have I not heard more of it.
Why haven't the authorities acted?'
'I do not know. Perhaps the skaven have allies in high places.'
He was thinking of von Halstadt now. How many more like him
occupied positions of power in Nuln and the rest of the Empire?
'I sometimes think that there is a conspiracy within our society
to cover up the effects of Chaos and all its works.'
He noticed that Drexler flinched slightly at the word 'conspir-
acy', but that the mention of Chaos did not seem to disturb him
at all.
'If you were not so obviously sane, I would suspect you of
being a lunatic,' Drexler added. 'Certainly, some of what you are
saying sounds like the ravings of a madman.'
'I know it,' Felix said. 'Unfortunately, it is all true.'
'That is certainly a possibility. In Arabia they do not consider
the rat-men legendary and I have spoken with several dwarfs
who have claimed to have encountered them. The elf seafarers
also tell tales of the rat-men's power. But I fail to see why you
have come to me other than to confide your tale.'
Felix handed over the letter that Gotrek had received. Drexler
unrolled it and read it calmly.
'Clan Pestilens,' he said eventually. 'Yes, I have read of them.'
'What?'
'Clan Pestilens. Certain of the old tomes, most notably
Leiber's The Loathsome Ratmen And All Their Vile Kin, claim that
the skaven are divided into many different clans, each with its
own role in skaven society, and its own unique brand of sorcery.
Leiber claims that Clan Pestilens were plague makers. He goes so
far as to state that they were responsible for the Great Plague of
the year 1111. If whoever sent you this letter is a hoaxer, he is cer-
tainly an erudite one. I doubt that there are more than twenty
people in the Empire who now own a copy of Leiber's book.'
'Do you?'
'Yes. I came across references to Leiber's theory about the
Great Plague in Moravec's work and sought it out. I have what
you might call a professional interest in these things.'
'May I see it?'
'Of course. But first, you must answer a few of my questions.'
'Certainly. Ask away!'
'Do you really 'seriously' believe that the skaven may be
behind this new outbreak of plague in the city?'
'Yes. From what I've seen of them it would suit their method of
warfare. I believe that perhaps they are undergoing a resurgence
and that soon our world will no longer doubt their existence.'
'Such would accord with Leiber's own theories.'
'What do you mean?' Felix looked up.
'Leiber claims that the skaven have a very high birth-rate and
that when the conditions are right their population grows explo-
sively. At such times they devour all the food in their own realms
and must seek food and resources elsewhere. At such times, they
explode onto the surface world in huge, hungry hordes. And they
keep fighting until either they conquer, or so many of them are
killed that they can once more subsist in their own realm.'
'I must read this book.'
'Yes. It is very interesting. He makes other claims that are diffi-
cult to verify.'
'Such as?'
'He claims these eruptions usually correlate with strange dis-
turbances and erratic behaviour from Morrslieb, the lesser moon.'
'Such as the one which preceded the Great Plague in 1111?'
'You are a learned man, Herr Jaeger. Yes, such as that occur-
rence and the one which preceded the great Chaos Incursion two
hundred years ago. I believe that another may be due to occur in
our own time.'
'So all the soothsayers and astrologers claim.'
'There may be truth in it.'
'Do you have any other questions?'
'Yes, but they can wait. I can see you are anxious to get at
Leiber's work and far be it from me to stand between a fellow
scholar and his books.'
Drexler brought a small set of steps and a lantern and they pro-
ceeded through the rows of bookcases to the furthest corner of
the room. From the highest shelf Drexler dragged down a musty
leather-bound tome, handling it reverently with both hands. He
blew the fine patina of dust off its cover and handed it to Felix.
'There is a table and a reading lamp over there. I will leave you
for a few minutes. I have some tasks to perform.' Felix nodded,
now totally wrapped up in his excitement over finding this vol-
ume.
It was heavy. The title and author's name embossed in gold leaf
on the spine had been almost rubbed away. Two massive hinges of
brass held the covers in place and helped them swing outwards.
Felix sat down at the table and lit the reading lamp from a candle,
turning the tiny handle at the base to extend the wick to its fullest
length then placing the shade back over the flame. The pungent
smell of aromatic oil filled the air as he began to read.
The book's title page said it had been printed by Altdorf Press
over one hundred and eighty years ago. That meant that Leiber
had most likely been around during the last great incursion of
Chaos, or had at least known people who had been. It was possi-
ble that he might even have had first-hand experience of the
rat-men.
As he read, Felix discovered that this was exactly what the
author claimed. In the introduction he stated that he had
encountered a horde of rat-men during the Great Chaos War.
Unlike his fellows, Leiber had been convinced that they were not
simply a new form of beastman but a completely separate race,
and he had devoted the next ten years of his life to uncovering all
manner of information about them. He referred to various schol-
arly sources, such as Schtutt, van Hal and Krueger, which Felix
made a mental note to consult later.
His book was divided into short chapters, each dealing with an
aspect of the structure of skaven society and its various clans.
Felix read, horrified, as Leiber dwelled on Clan Moulder's vile
experiments with living creatures, changing them into all manner
of foul mutant monsters. He recognised the artificers of Clan
Skryre as the creatures he and Gotrek had encountered at the Col-
lege of Engineering. The thing which had set the monster on
them in Fritz von Halstadt's mansion was a grey seer, some sort
of verminous priest. Leiber may have written like a ranting
maniac but everything he wrote tallied with Felix's own hard-won
experience. Even if the scholar was discredited, he was also cor-
rect.
Felix paid particular attention to the section on Clan Pestilens,
and about how they created diseases and used all manner of foul
devices to spread their filthy plagues. The descriptions of the Boil
Lurgy and the Flea Buboes made his skin crawl. There were hor-
rors here that went beyond any he had previously imagined.
A shadow fell on him and he looked up to see Drexler stand-
ing over him. He realised that he must have been reading for
hours in the gloom, and that his eyes hurt from the strain.
'Have you found what you were looking for?' Drexler asked.
'More than I ever wanted to know.'
'Good. Come and see me tomorrow and I may be able to help
you. You may take the book with you if you wish. '
'Help me. How?'
'We will visit the city morgue.'
'How will that help?'
'You will see tomorrow, Herr Jaeger. Now go home and sleep.'
Gotrek looked up from his plate as Felix entered the Blind Pig.
'Look what the cat dragged in,' he said, and stuffed a hunk of black
bread into his mouth.
Elissa looked up from her place beside him. 'Oh, Felix, I was so
worried. You said you'd be back in a couple of hours and it's almost
dawn. I thought the rat-men might have got you.'
Felix laid the book down on the table and hugged her tight. 'I'm
fine. I just had to find out a few things.'
'The Loathsome Ratmen And All Their Vile Kin,' Gotrek read, tilting
his head and reading the spine of the book.
Elissa looked at him in astonishment. 'I didn't know you could
read,' she said.
Gotrek grinned, showing the blackened stumps of his teeth. He
flicked the book open with one greasy finger and began turning
pages until he found the one bookmarked at Clan Pestilens. 'He
knows his stuff, this Leiber. Must have consulted dwarfish sources.'
'Yes, yes,' Felix said tetchily. 'Must have.'
'Where did you get this, manling?'
'Doctor Drexler.'
'He's a man of many interests, your friend Drexler, if he owns
books like this one.'
'You'll get a chance to find out for yourself.'
'Will I indeed? How so?'
'Because we're going with him to the morgue.'
Grey Seer Thanquol scurried backwards and forwards, pacing
the floor of his lair like one of the captured humans he kept
working the treadmills back in Skavenblight. His mind raced
faster under the pressure of all the warpstone snuff he had con-
sumed.
Still those verminous Clan Pestilens traitors had conspired to
elude him. Their sorcery had proved effective, even against his most
subtle and potent divinations. His spies had not been able to
uncover another word about their location no matter how deep
they dug. It was all very frustrating.
Somewhere deep in his bowels, Thanquol could sense with omi-
nous certainty that the hour when the plague monks' plan would
be implemented was drawing very close. He knew that he must be
correct in this, for in the past such premonitions had never been
wrong. He was a grey seer, after all.
A terrible sense of impending doom filled Thanquol's mind.
He wanted to run for cover, to scurry to a hiding place, but right
at this moment he could think of nowhere to go.
Plague, he kept thinking. Plague was coming.
'Good morning, Doctor Drexler,' the priest of Morr said, and
coughed. He looked up from his table set in an alcove at the
entrance to the city morgue. His black cowl hid his face, making
him seem as sinister as the god he served. The air was filled with
the smell of black roses, fresh-plucked from the Gardens of Morr.
'What is it you require?'
'I would like to see the corpses of the latest plague victims.'
Felix was astonished at the calm manner in which the doctor
made his request. Most of the people in the city would rather run
a thousand miles than do what the doctor wanted to do. The
priest obviously thought so too. He threw back the cowl of his
robes to reveal a pallid, bony face framed by a stringy black
beard.
'That is a most unusual request,' he said. 'I will have to consult
with my superiors.'
'As you wish,' Drexler said. 'Tell them I simply want to ascertain
whether all the victims died of the same disease or whether we're
going to have a variety of plagues to deal with this summer.'
The priest nodded and retreated within the shadowy depths of
the temple. Somewhere off in the distance a great bell tolled
gloomily. Somewhere, Felix knew, another funeral service was
about to begin.
The priest returned presently. 'The arch-lector says you may
proceed,' he said. 'However, he also asked me to tell you that
most of the bodies have already been sent to the Gardens of Morr
for internment. We only have the four who came in last night.'
'That should be sufficient,' Drexler said. 'I hope.'
Felix, Gotrek and Doctor Drexler all paid the ceremonial copper
piece and donned the black robes and headpieces of Morr. This
was sacred ground, the priest told them, and it was needful that
they do so. The robes had obviously been made for humans and
the hems of Gotrek's dragged along the floor. Without another
word they set off into the gloomy interior of the mortuary.
It was cool and it was dark. The floors were clean, washed with some
sacred unguents. The smell of attar of black roses was everywhere. It
was not what Felix had expected. He had expected rot and the smell of
spoiled meat. He had expected the scent of death.
The central chamber of the Death God's house was arrayed with
marble slabs. Upon each slab lay a corpse. Felix averted his eyes. The
bodies belonged to people who had died under unusual circum-
stances and who needed special rites said over them to ensure their
soul's easy passage into the afterlife. Many of them were not pretty.
On one slab lay the blue and bloated corpse of a fisherman which
had obviously recently been dragged from the Reik. On another lay
the body of a woman who had been hideously cut up and muti-
lated by some madman. They passed the body of a child which,
Felix saw when he looked closer, had had its head separated from
the body. He looked away swiftly.
Here the smell overcame the scent of incense and unguents. Felix
understood with a start why their cowls had a special flap of cloth
which could be drawn over the mouth and nostrils. He adjusted his
to cut down on the stink and moved on to the section where the
plague victims lay. Nearby stood two priests, eyes closed, censers
held in their hands. They muttered prayers for the dead and showed
no fear of what had killed them.
Perhaps they were simply inured to fear by their long exposure to
death, Felix thought. Or perhaps they simply did not fear to die?
They were, after all, priests of the Death God and were assured of
preferential treatment in the hereafter. He decided that if he ever
encountered one of the priests later he would ask him about this.
He was curious how they had become so hardened.
Drexler advanced cautiously to the slabs and exchanged words
and coins with the priests. They nodded, ceased their muttering, and
withdrew. Without fuss, Drexler drew back a sheet from the nearest
body. It was the body of a short man, a trader, dressed in his best. A
black rose was set in the lapel of his tunic. He looked oddly exposed
and defenceless in death. He had been cleaned up since he died.
'Some bruising on the hands and knees as well as on the fore-
head,' Drexler pointed out. 'Most likely from where the man fell
over in the last extremities of his anguish.'
Felix thought of the spasming of the man he had seen in the
street and understood how this could have happened.
'Notice the swollen areas on the chest and throat and the slight
crust of greenish stuff on the upper lip and nostrils.'
Drexler pushed the eyelids back with his fingers and there were
faint traces of green around the eye rims as well. 'I am sure that if I
performed a dissection, something which our priestly friends here
would object to, we would find the lungs filled with a green viscous
fluid. It is this which eventually kills the victim. They literally drown
in it.'
'A horrible way to die,' Felix said.
'In my experience few diseases kill pleasantly, Herr Jaeger,'
Drexler said. He moved on to the next body and drew back the
sheet. This was the corpse of a middle-aged woman, dressed in
black. Her eyes were open and stared at the ceiling in horror. There
was trace of rouge on her cheeks and of kohl around her eyes. Felix
found that there was something rather pathetic about this attempt
to improve the appearance of one who was now dead.
'At least she's dressed in the right colours,' Gotrek said - some-
what tactlessly, Felix thought.
Drexler shrugged. 'Widow's robes. Her husband must have died
within the last year or so. She'll be joining him now.'
He moved along to the next slab and studied the body of a small
child. There was a family resemblance to the dead widow. Drexler
looked at the piece of parchment that was around her neck. 'Daugh-
ter. An unlucky family, it seems.'
He turned and looked at Felix. 'Nothing unusual, unfortunately.
It is quite common for plagues and other diseases to spread among
families and those who live together generally. It seems this plague
can shift like a summer cold.'
Felix sniffed. 'What exacdy are we looking for here, Herr Drexler?'
A pattern. Something out of the ordinary. Something that would
tell us whether there was any common factor that all of these poor
victims shared.'
'How would that help us?' asked Gotrek.
Felix already knew the answer. 'If we could find that, we might
find out how the disease is spreading. We might be able to take'steps
to isolate it. Or if it's really coming from the skaven we might be able
to trace it back to its source.'
Very good, Herr Jaeger. In a way, it's like solving a murder or a
mystery. You need to be able to see the clues, that way you'll find the
culprit.'
'And have you seen any clues?' Gotrek asked.
Drexler removed the last sheet from the last body. It was a young
man, barely out of his twenties. Felix felt a sudden shocking sense
of his own mortality. The plague's victims could not be much older
than he.
'Anything?' Felix asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
'Unfortunately not,' Drexler said, and turned to leave.
* * *
After the gloom of the mortuary, the daylight seemed impossibly
bright. After the quiet of the halls of the dead, the cacophony of the
street seemed impossibly loud. After the perfumed smell of the vaults,
the stench of the city was nearly overwhelming. Felix's nose was runny
and there was a slight pain in his joints. Not the plague, he told him-
self, fingering the pomander, just a summer cold. His earlier
unanswered question returned to him.
Why don't the priests of Morr get all the plagues and diseases that
kill their... clients? Does their lord extend them some special protec-
tion?'
'I do not know. Their mausoleum is dean and well washed, and in
my experience that helps stop the spread of disease. They are priests
and thus well fed and well rested; that helps too.'
'Really?'
'Oh yes. Grief, stress, poor living conditions, dirt, bad food - all con-
tribute to the spread of disease, and sometimes help decide who will
survive it.'
'Why's that?'
'I do not know. I can only say I have observed it to be true.'
'So you think these things help make the priests of Morr immune to
disease?'
'I never said they were immune, Herr Jaeger. Every now and again,
one of them falls ill.'
'What then?'
'He goes to his god, with no doubt a special dispensation in the
afterlife due to the strength of his faith.'
That's not very reassuring,' Felix said.
'If you want reassurance, Herr Jaeger, talk to a priest. I am a physi-
cian, and unfortunately, I must now return to making my living. I am
sorry I could not have been of more help.'
Felix bowed to him. You've already been a great help, Herr Doctor.
Thank you for your time.'
Drexler bowed back and turned to go. At the last moment, he turned
and spoke. 'Let me know of there are any new developments,' he said.
'Look for a pattern.'
'I will,' Felix said.
'I'm going to look for a beer,' Gotrek said.
'I think that might be a good idea,' Felix said, suddenly wanting des-
perately to get the taste of the mortuary out of his mouth.
Fellx stared down into his third beer and considered what they had
seen. His head ached a little from what he kept having to tell himself
was a summer cold, but the beer was helping to take away that pain.
Gotrek sat slumped beside the fire staring into the flames. Heinz was
standing by the bar, getting things ready for the evening rush. The other
bouncers nursed their drinks and played hook-knife at the next table.
Felix was troubled. He felt baffled and stupid. He knew that
there must be a pattern here but he just could not see it. It looked
like something invisible and deadly was killing the people of Nuln
and there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was frustrating. He
almost wished for another raid by the gutter runners, or another
attack by skaven warriors. What he could see, he could fight. Or to
be absolutely specific, what he could see, the Slayer could fight and
most likely beat. Thinking, Felix realised, was not their strong suit.
Once he had prided himself on being a clever and well-educated
man, a scholar and a poet. But things had changed in his wander-
ings. He could not remember the last time he had put pen to paper,
and last night was the first night in a long, long time when he had
opened a book with any pretensions to scholarship. He had fallen
right into the role of wandering mercenary adventurer, and his
brain appeared to have fallen dormant.
He was out of his depth, he knew. He was not a razor-witted
investigator of the sort which featured in the plays of Detlef Sierck.
And to be honest, he did not believe that in real life things worked
quite the way they did in the theatre, with clues arranged in neat
chains of logic, pointing towards an inevitable solution. Life was
messier than that. Things were rarely simple, and if there were really
clues, doubdess they could be given far more than one neat and log-
ical interpretation.
He thought about Drexler. So far the doctor had done nothing
but help them, but it would be easy to put a sinister interpretation
on his work and his motives. He possessed too much knowledge of
the sort mat was frowned on in the Empire, and that in itself was sus-
picious. In the more superstitious parts of the human realms, just
the possession of the books that Drexler owned would be cause for
burning at the stake. The reading of them would cause a witch
hunter to execute him without trial.
And yet Felix himself had read one of those books, and he knew
he was no friend to Chaos. Could not Drexler be in the same boat?
Could he simply be what he appeared to be, a man who was con-
cerned with acquiring any knowledge that would help him in his
vocation of curing people, no matter what the source? It was all too
difficult, Felix thought. The beer was starting to make his head spin.
Ultimately he knew in his heart of hearts that there had to be a
link between the deaths of all the people. He was certain, in fact, that
he had already seen evidence of it but was just too foolish to know
what it was. So far the only link he could think of was that they had
all ended up in the Halls of the Dead, in the temple of Morr, and
that was no link at all. Eventually every man and every woman
would end up there en route to burial in the Gardens of Morr. Every
citizen of Nuln would end up in that huge cemetery one day.
He wanted to laugh bitterly at that, but then a thought struck
him. Wait! There was a link between most of the people he knew
had died of the plague. The man he had seen in the street two days
ago had worn a black rose. Another victim, the one in the mortuary,
had also worn a black rose, the traditional symbol of mourning.
The woman and her child had been widow and orphan. Only the
last one had not shown any connection, but perhaps if he dug
deeply enough he would find one.
What could it mean? Was the Temple of Morr itself involved in
the spread of the plague? Did the corruption run so deep? Some-
how Felix doubted it. The first man he had seen had just been to a
funeral. Had any of the others? The one wearing the rose was virtu-
ally a certainly. The mother and child? He did not know, but he
knew a way to find out. He pulled himself up out of the chair and
tapped Gotrek on the shoulder.
'We need to go back to the Temple of Morr,' he said.
'Are you developing a morbid attachment to the place?'
'No. I think it may hold the key to this plague.'
It was dark when they arrived at the temple. It did not matter. The
gates were open. Lanterns were lit. As the priests never tired of
pointing out, the gates to Morr's kingdom were always open, and a
man could never tell when he might pass through them.
Felix asked to talk with the priest who he had spoken to earlier.
He was in luck. The man was still on duty. The offer of some silver
procured the information that he was always willing to talk. Felix
and the Slayer were shown into a small, spartan antechamber. The
walls were lined with books. They reminded him of the ledgers
which lined the walls of his father's office. In a way, that was what
they were. They contained the names and descriptions of the dead.
Felix did not doubt they contained records of donations for funeral
services and prayers to be offered in the temple. He had had deal-
ings with the priests of Morr before.
'So you are Doctor Drexler's assistants?' the priest asked.
'Yes. In a manner of speaking.'
'In a manner of speaking?'
'We are helping with his researches into the plagues. We're trying
to find a way to stop them.'
The priest showed a slow, sad smile. Then I don't know if I should
help you.'
'Why?'
They're good for business.'
Seeing Felix's shocked look, he gave a small, polite cough. 'Just a
small attempt at humour,' he said eventually.
'You look tired,' Felix said to break the silence. The priest gave a long
hacking cough. 'And ill.'
'In truth, I do not feel so well and it's been a long day. The brother
who should have replaced me has himself fallen sick and is cloistered
in his cell. He's not been well since he presided over the inhumations
yesterday.'
Felix and Gotrek exchanged looks.
Felix nodded politely. Gotrek growled.
'Your, errm, associate does not look much like a physician, Herr
Jaeger,' the priest said.
'He helps with the heavy work.'
'Of course. Well, how can I help you?'
'I need to know more about those people Doctor Drexler looked at
this morning.'
'Not a problem.' He tapped the leather bound book in front of him.
'All the appropriate details will be in the current libram. What exactly
do you need to know?'
'Had any of the deceased attended any funeral services just recently?'
'Frau Koch and her daughter had. I officiated at the inhumation of
Herr Koch myself last week at the Gardens.'
And the other gentleman?'
'No, I do not think so. He is not a man who we would allow to
attend any of our services. Except his own inhumation, of course.'
'What do you mean? I thought anyone could enter the Gardens of
Morr.'
'Not quite. Herr Gruenwald belonged to that noxious class of crim-
inals who make their living by robbing family crypts and stealing
corpses to sell to dissectionists and necromancers. He was under inter-
dict. He would never be allowed within the gates of the garden on pain
of supreme chastisement.'
'Death, you mean.'
'Precisely.'
And the man wearing the black rose?'
'I will check the records. I suspect that given the nature of his
adornment we will find that he too had attended an inhumation
recendy. You are not from Nuln, are you, Herr Jaeger? I can tell from
your accent'
'You are correct. I come from Altdorf originally.'
Then perhaps you did not know it is a local custom to pick one
of the black roses from the Death God's Garden when you attend a
ceremony there.'
'I thought people bought them from the flower sellers.'
'No. The roses grow only in the Gardens and it is forbidden to sell
them for profit.'
There was silence for a few minutes as the priest studied the
records. 'Ah, yes. His sister passed away last week. Inhumed in the
Gardens of Morr. Is there anything else I can do for you?' he asked
brightly.
'No. I think you've told us enough.'
'Can you tell me what all this is about?'
'Not at the moment. I'm sure Doctor Drexler will inform you
when he has completely formulated his theory.'
'Please ask him to do so, Herr Jaeger.' As they left, the priest was
bent almost double in a fit of coughing.
'Tell me what all of this is about, manling,' Gotrek said as they
entered the street. Felix glanced around to make sure that there was
no one close enough to overhear them.
'All of the people who we know have died of the new plague have
visited the Gardens of Monr recently. The tomb robber as well, most
likely.'
'So?'
That's the only connection I've been able to see and Drexler told
us to look for connections.'
'It seems unlikely, manling.'
'Do you have any better ideas?' Felix asked allowing a measure of
his frustration to show in his voice. The Slayer considered for a
moment then shook his head.
'You think we'll find our little scuttling friends brewing plagues
up in the city cemetery?'
'Possibly.'
There's only one way to find out.'
'I know.'
'When?'
Tonight. After work. It will be quiet then and we can take a look
around.'
Felix shuddered. He could think of many places he would rather
be than crawling around the city's main cemetery after midnight
with a bunch of skaven in attendance, but what else was he going to
do? If they took their tale to the authorities they would most likely
not be believed. Perhaps the skaven would get wind of their presence
and move their operation. At least he felt sure that there could not
be too many of the rat-men up there. A small army camped in the
graveyard would be noticed. Hopefully they would be few enough
for the Slayer's axe to take care of.
Felix certainly hoped so.
The gates of the Gardens of Morr were not open. Steel bars filled the
archway, padlocked by heavy chains. A small postern gate was occu-
pied by a night-watchman who sat warming his hands at a brazier.
Spikes covered the high wall which surrounded the city graveyard.
Felix wondered at that. In some ways the cemetery resembled a
fortress but he was unsure as to whether the walls were intended to
keep grave robbers out or the dead in. There had been times in his-
tory, he reflected, when the dead had not slept easily in their graves.
There was a basic primal fear at work here, he thought. Something
intended to separate the dead from the living. In its way, the physi-
cal barrier was reassuring. Except, of course, when you intended to
broach it, as he and the Slayer did tonight.
What was he doing here, Felix wondered? He should be at home,
back in the inn, sharing his pallet with Elissa now that the night's
work was done. Not skulking around in the shadows, preparing to
break into the city graveyard, a crime for which the penalty was sev-
eral years imprisonment, and interdiction by the Temple of Morr.
Surely there had to be an easier way than this. Surely somebody
else could deal with the problem. But he knew this was not true. If
he and Gotrek did not hunt down the skaven, who else was inter-
ested? They were the only people crazy enough to involve
themselves in these affairs. If they did not do it, no one else would.
The authorities seemed to want to turn a blind eye to the evil
which was happening in their midst. The best possible interpretation
Felix could put on it was that they were ignorant or afraid. The worst
possible interpretation was that they were in collusion with the Pow-
ers of Darkness.
How many more Fritz von Halstadts occupied positions of trust
throughout the Empire? Most likely he would never know. All he
could really do was act out his part. Perform the share of the actions
which seemed to be allocated to himself and the Slayer, and hope
things turned out for the best.    .
What else could he do? If he left the city, it was possible the plague
would spread, and that it would wipe out Heinz and Otto and Elissa
and the others that he knew and cared about here. It was possible that
thousands might die, if he and the Slayer failed to solve this riddle.
And, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that the
thought of the responsibility thrilled as well as frightened him. In a
way it was like being the hero of one of the stories he had read when
he was a child. He was involved in intrigue and danger and the
stakes were high.
Unfortunately, unlike the stories he had read when he was a
child, the stakes were also all too real. It was easily possible that he
and the Slayer might fail, and that death would be their reward. It
was that thought, not the cold night air, which made him shiver.
They made their way round the walls of the cemetery until they
found a conveniently dark place. Felix made sure the lantern he car-
ried was securely attached to the clip on his sword belt, then vaulted
up, caught one of the metal spikes and used it for leverage to pull
himself to the top of the wall. Perhaps the spikes were mere orna-
ments after all, he told himself, and served no other purpose.
The moon broke through the cloud and he found himself look-
ing out over the graveyard. It was an eerie sight in the silvered light.
Mist was rising. Gravestones loomed out of it, like islands rising
from some dismal sea. Trees leaned like enormous ogres, raising
branched arms in worship to the Dark Gods. Somewhere in the dis-
tance, the lantern of a night-watchman flickered and then vanished,
whether because its bearer had returned to the watch-house or for
some other, darker, reason, Felix hoped never to find out. It was
still. He was not sure whether it was sweat or mist that beaded his
forehead.
The thought that this excursion would do nothing to help his
cold struck him, and the incongruity made him want to laugh. He
flinched as the beak of Gotrek's great axe curved over the stone
beside him, and the Slayer used it to pull himself up the wall. The
dwarf was swift and surprisingly nimble when he wanted to be -
and when he was reasonably sober, Felix thought.
'Let's get on with it,' he muttered, and they dropped down into
the silent graveyard.
All around them loomed the gravestones. Some were tumbled.
Others were overgrown with weeds and black rose bushes. Here and
there an engraved inscription was almost visible in the moonlight.
The graves were laid out in long rows, like streets of the dead. Old
gnarled trees overshadowed them in places. Everywhere the mist
drifted spectrally, sometimes becoming so thickly cloudy that vision
was obscured. The smell of black roses filled the air. During the day
it was possible that the Gardens of Morr was a pleasant place but at
night, Felix found his mind turning all too quickly to thoughts of
ghosts.
It was easy to envision the countless bodies decomposing under
the ground, worms burrowing through rotting flesh and the empty
eye sockets of corpses. From there it was but a short leap of the
imagination to picture those corpses emerging from beneath the
ground, skeletal hands reaching upward through the soil, like the
fingers of drowning swimmers emerging from beneath the sea.
He tried to push the thoughts from his mind, but it was hard. He
had seen stranger things happen, had encountered the walking
dead before, in the hills of the Border Princes on his cursed trip
across those empty lands with the exiled von Diehl family. He knew
that old dark magic was capable of stirring the dead into an unholy
semblance of life, and filling them with a terrible hunger for the
flesh and the blood of the living.
He tried telling himself that this was holy ground, consecrated to
Morr, and that the Death God protected his charges from such
awful happenings. But these were strange times, and he had heard
dire rumours that the powers of the Old Gods were waning as the
power of Chaos increased. He tried telling himself that perhaps
such things happened in far-off lands like Kislev which bordered
the Chaos Wastes, but this was Nuln, the heart of the Empire, the
core of human civilisation. But part of him whispered that Chaos
was here too, that all of the human lands were rotten to the core.
To reassure himself he glanced down at Gotrek. The Slayer
seemed unafraid. A look of grim determination was engraved on his
face. His axe was held ready to strike and he stood immobile, nose
twitching, head cocked, listening to the night.
'Many strange scents tonight,' the dwarf said. 'Many strange
noises. This is a busy place for a boneyard.'
'What do you mean?'
'Things moving. A bad feeling in the air. A lot of rats in the
undergrowth. You were right about this place, manling.'
'Wonderful,' Felix said, wondering why he was usually right when
he least wanted to be. 'Let's get moving. We want to find the area
where there are fresh graves. That's where the funerals will take
place. And that's where the plagues are coming from, I think.'
They moved along the thoroughfares between the graves, and Felix
slowly realised that the Gardens of Morr were truly a necropolis, a
city of the dead. It had its districts and its palaces just like the city
outside. Here was the poor quarter, the area where paupers were
thrown into unmarked communal graves. There were the neatly
tended gravestones where the prosperous middle classes were
buried. They competed with each other in the ornateness of their
headstones, the way jealous neighbours might compete in life.
Winged saints armed with stone swords held aloft books inscribed
with the names and occupations of the dead. Stone dragons
hunched over the last resting places of merchants like dogs protect-
ing bones. Cowled, scythe-wielding figures of Morr stood guard
over stones of black marble. In the distance Felix could see the large
marble mausoleums of the rich nobles. They occupied palaces in
death as they had in life.
Here and there black roses had been placed in bowers. Their
sickly sweet perfume assaulted Felix's nostrils. Sometimes there
were letters, or gifts or other mementoes from the living to the
dead. An overwhelming feeling of sadness started to mingle with
Felix's earlier feelings of fear. These things were some indicators of
the futility of human life. It did not matter how rich or successful
the men who lay in those graves had been. They were gone now.
Just as one day Felix would be. He could understand in some ways
the Slayer's desire to be remembered.
Life is written on sand, he thought, and the wind is blowing the
grains away.
They chose a place near the open graves and concealed them-
selves behind some toppled tombstones. The smell of fresh turned
earth filled Felix's nostrils. The chill of the mist bit through his
clothing. He felt patches of dampness on his britches where they
touched dew-bedecked plants. He pulled his cloak tight against the
cold, and then they settled down to wait.
Felix glanced up at the sky. The moon had more than half completed
its passage and still nothing had happened. All that he had heard in
that time was the scrabbling of ordinary rats. All they had seen were
some vicious, mad-eyed vermin. There was no sign of the skaven.
Perhaps, he thought, half disappointed and half relieved, he had
been wrong. Maybe they had best consider going home. Now
would be a good time to leave. The streets would be deserted. Most
every honest person would be safely asleep. He wiped his nose with
the edge of his cloak. It was running and he knew this night outside
would do nothing for his cold. He stretched his legs, trying to work
the stiffness and numbness out of them when he felt Gotrek's hand
on his shoulder.
'Be still,' the Slayer whispered. 'Something comes.'
Felix froze and glared out into the darkness, wishing that he pos-
sessed the dwarfs keen senses and penetrating night vision. He
heard his heart beat loudly within his chest. His muscles, locked in
their unnatural position, began to protest against the strain, but still
he held himself immobile, hardly daring to breathe, hoping that
whatever was coming would not notice him before he saw it.
Suddenly he scented a foul and loathsome taint in the air. It
smelled of rotting flesh and weeping sores, like the body of a sick
man left unwashed in a hospice for weeks or years. If disease had a
smell, it would be like this, Felix thought. He knew in an instant
that his suspicions had been correct. In order to keep from gagging,
he held the pomander close to his nose, and prayed that its spells
would make him proof against whatever was coming.
A hideous figure limped into view. It resembled a skaven, but it
was like no rat-man Felix had ever seen before. Here and there great
boils erupted from its mangy fur, and something hideous dripped
from its weeping skin. Most of its body was wrapped round with
soiled bandages encrusted with pus and filth. It was emaciated and
its eyes glowed with a mad, feverish light. Its movements were
almost drunken; it reeled as if in the grip of a disease which inter-
fered with its sense of balance. And yet, when it moved it sometimes
did so with bursts of obscene speed, with the unholy energy of a
sick man mustering the last of his strength for some hideous task.
It tittered loathsomely as it moved and talked to itself in its
strange tongue. As it did all this, Felix noticed it held a cage in one
palsied hand, and in that cage seethed rats. It stopped for a
moment, hopped on one stringy leg. Then it opened the cage and
took out a rat. Others burst free of the open door and dropped to
the ground into the graves. As they fell, they leaked urine and foul
excrement. When it touched the earth, for a brief moment there was
a hideous, overwhelming stink that threatened to make Felix gag,
and which only slowly subsided. The rats pulled themselves from
the graves and dragged themselves feebly into cover. Felix could see
that they left a trail of noxious slime in their wake, and it was obvi-
ous they were dying. What foul thing was going on here, Felix
wondered?
The skaven capered past. Felix was surprised and appalled when
the Slayer did not immediately strike it down, but instead gestured
for Felix to follow and then set off on its track. It took Felix but a
few moments to understand Gotrek's plan. They were going to fol-
low the plague monk of Clan Pestilens - for such Felix guessed it to
be - back to its lair. They were seeking a path into the very heart of
corruption in the Gardens of Morr.
*  *  *
As they followed the capering plague monk through the mist-
enshrouded cemetery, Felix noticed that there were other skaven
present. Judging by the empty cages they carried they had all been
on the same evil errand and were now returning to their lair. Some
limped along, borne down by the weight of rotting corpses -
recently exhumed, judging by the earth which still dung to their
grave clothes.
He and the Slayer were forced to move cautiously, lurking behind
tombstones, taking refuge in the shadows beneath the trees, moving
from patch of cover to patch of cover. In some ways, Felix thought
it was unnecessary. The plague monks did not seem as alert as nor-
mal skaven. They seemed quite mad, and often oblivious to their
surroundings. Maybe their brains were as rotted as their bodies by
the diseases they carried.
Sometimes they would stop for minutes and scratch themselves
until they bled, or their festering scabs broke and then they would
taste the pus which stained their claws. Sometimes they would
pause and stare into space for no reason. At times foul excrement
would belch forth from beneath their tails and they would lie down
and writhe in it, tittering insanely. Felix felt his flesh crawl. These
creatures were not sane even by the crazed standards of skaven.
Now at last they were making their way towards a vast mau-
soleum deep in the noble quarter of the Gardens. They were
walking along paved pathways, between well-tended gardens. Here
and there statues loomed over sundials that were useless at this
hour. More and more plague monks were becoming visible, and
more than once Felix and the Slayer hid themselves within the
arched entrances to the tomb of some noble clan. Only when the
skaven had passed did they rejoin the nightmare procession making
its way deeper into the old part of the cemetery, where the largest
and most tumbledown of the tombs were.
They paused at a corner and Felix noticed the skaven disappear-
ing into the mouth of the largest and most ancient of the
mausoleums. The building was built almost like a temple, in the old
Tilean style with pillars supporting the roof of the entrance hall and
statues of what Felix assumed were the builder's families held in
niches between the columns. Only after the last skaven had disap-
peared did he and Gotrek advance to the stairs leading up to the
entrance.
In the moonlight Felix could see that the mausoleum was in a
state of great disrepair. The stonework had crumbled, the friezes had
been eaten away by the effects of centuries of wind and rain, the
faces had crumbled off the statues to be replaced by lichen. It looked
like the stone itself was suffering from some terrible disease. The gar-
dens around it were wild and overgrown. Felix could not be sure but
he guessed that the family who had built this place had died out.
The place had an uncared-for look, as if no one had visited the place
in years. By day this would be a forbidding enough place. On this
night, Felix felt no great urge to look within.
Gotrek, however, bounded up the stairs as fast as his short legs
could carry him. The runes on his axe gleamed in the moonlight.
He grinned at the prospect of confronting the skaven in their lair.
Briefly it struck Felix that the dwarf was just as mad in his own way
as the skaven were in theirs - and perhaps the best thing he could
do was scuttle off and leave them all to their own devices. Felix
fought to bring this urge under control as they reached the doorway.
He was surprised to find that there was no way in, only a blank
stone wall. Gotrek stood before it, puzzled for a minute, scratched
his tattooed head with one blunt finger and then reached out to
touch one of the stone faces on the side of the arch. As he did so,
the wall in front of them slowly and silently rotated to reveal an
entranceway.
'Shoddy work,' Gotrek muttered. 'Dwarf work would not be so
easy to detect.'
'Yes, yes,' Felix mumbled uneasily and then followed Gotrek
through the open entrance of the tomb.
The door slid silendy closed behind them.
The stench was worse within. The walls were thoroughly caked
with filth. Felix could feel it squelch under his hands as he fumbled
his way forward through the darkness. Remembering the foul acts
he had witnessed the plague monks perform made him want to
vomit. Instead, though, he forced himself to follow the faint glow
of the runes on the Slayer's axe ahead of him.
Gotrek moved quickly and surely, as if he had no difficulty see-
ing even in the absence of light. Felix suspected that this might be
the case, and that the Slayer's vision might be as good in the gloom
as it was in the daylight. He had followed the dwarf through dark
places before and was certain that the Slayer knew what he was
doing. All the same, he wished that he could light the lantern he
carried.
From somewhere off in the distance, he heard a faint scratching
sound, and he revised that thought. Perhaps a lantern would not be
such a good idea after all. It would certainly warn the skaven of their
presence, and Felix felt sure that their one chance of survival in the
face of the rat-men's greater numbers was to attack swiftly with the
advantage of surprise. Still, if he was going to fight he was going to
need light at some point, he thought. He prayed he had a chance to
light his lamp before moving into battle.
He almost lost his balance as he put his weight forward and there
was nothing there. Recovering himself, he realised that he was on a
stair heading down. This was indeed a large mausoleum. Whoever
had built this place had certainly spent a lot of money, he thought.
And why not? They were going to spend eternity here, or so they
had thought.
Ahead of them now he could hear a loud chittering. It sounded
like the skaven were involved in some obscene ritual. A faint glow
of greenish, sickly light illuminated the corridor ahead. It looked
like they were about to confront the rat-men in their lair.
Vilebroth Null cackled as one of his leprous fingers broke off
and fell into the bubbling cauldron. It was a good sign. His own
plague-eaten flesh would help feed the spirit which lurked there
and strengthen the brew that would soon bring death to his ene-
mies. The Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes was at once a sacred
relic and a weapon for Clan Pestilens, and he intended that it
would fulfil both purposes at once.
From his pouch he took out a thick handful of warpstone dust
and threw it into the great vat. His remaining fingers tingled from
the warpstone's touch and he licked them clean, feeling the tingling
transfer itself to his tongue as he did so. He licked his gums so that
some of the dust would contaminate the abscesses and ulcers there
and perhaps make their contents even more contagious.
Null hawked a huge gob of phlegm into his mouth and then spat
it into the thick soupy mixture for good measure, all the while stir-
ring with the great ladle carved from the thigh bone of a dragon. He
could sense the pestilential power rising from the cauldron the way
an ordinary skaven might feel the heat from a fire. It was as if he
stood in front of a mighty conflagration of toxic energies.
He breathed deeply, pulling the heady vapours that rose from the
mixture into his lungs, and instantly was rewarded with a thick,
treacly cough. He could almost feel his lungs dogging with fluid as
the corruption brewed there. It was a just reward, he thought. His
plans were going well. The tests were almost complete.
The new plague was as virulent as could be hoped, but most
importantly it was his. He had used an old recipe but had added the
new secret ingredient himself. Forever afterwards among the faith-
ful of Clan Pestilens it would be known as Null's Pox. His name
would be inscribed in the great Liber Bubonicus. He would be long
remembered as the originator of a new disease, one that would rav-
age the furless ones like a ferocious beast of prey.
With every night, the brew grew thicker. With every new plague
corpse added to the mix, the disease grew stronger. Soon, he
judged, it would be ready. Already bodies suffering from the
symptoms of the plague had been returned to the cemetery. He
gave humble thanks to the Horned Rat for the inspiration which
had made him seek out a hiding place where he could observe the
results of his handiwork. And where else could he find such a rich
source of contaminated bodies to drop into the brew!
Tomorrow night, he would dispatch his agents to drop conta-
minated rats into the wells, and through the roofs of the great
abattoirs where the humans slaughtered their meat. After that, the
plague would spread most swiftly.
He added more of the corpse roses to the mixture. These were
his final secret ingredients to the brew. There were no finer and no
stronger ones to be found. They grew on plants whose roots dug
through the flesh of corpses. They were ripe and strong with accu-
mulated death energies.
He breathed deeply of the scent of corruption and peered out
with his filmed eyes at his followers. They lay sprawled across the
ancient human death-chamber, twitching and scratching, cough-
ing and hawking like the true members of Clan Pestilens they
were. He knew that each and every one of them was united in their
sincere dedication to the cause of the clan. They were filled with
the sort of brotherhood which few other skaven could understand.
Not for them the endless intrigues and the constant scrabble for
advantage. They had sought and found abnegation of self in true
worship of the Horned Rat in his most concrete form: the Bringer
of Disease, the Spreader of Plague.
For each and every member of the clan knew that their body
was a temple which harboured the countless blessings of their
god. Their rotted nerve endings no longer felt the pain, save occa-
sionally when they felt ghostly echoes of their suffering, like
someone hearing the tolling of a distant bell while drowning in
deep water. He knew that other skaven thought them mad and
avoided them, but that was because other skaven lacked their
purity of purpose, their total commitment to serving their god.
Each and every plague monk present was prepared to pay any
price, make any sacrifice to reach the goals of clan and deity. It was
this commitment that made them the most worthy of all the
Horned Rat's servants, and the most suitable leaders of the entire
skaven people.
Soon all the other clans would realise this. Soon this new plague
would bring the human city of Nuln to its knees, even before the
mighty verminous hordes entered its precincts. Soon all would bear
witness that the triumph belonged to Clan Pestilens, to the Horned
Rat, and to Vilebroth Null, the humblest of the great horned lord's
chosen servants. Soon he would be established as the only vessel
suitable to bear the Horned Rat's word. It would be fitting, for
although he was but the humblest of the Horned Rat's servants, he
knew where his duty lay, and that was not true of all skaven in this
devolved age.
He knew that many of his fellow rat-men had lost sight of their
race's great goals, and had lost themselves in the pursuit of self-
aggrandisement. Grey Seer Thanquol was an example of just such
a tendency. He cared more for himself and his status than he did
for the overthrowing of the Horned Rat's enemies. It was disgust-
ing behaviour for one who should have been among the most
dedicated of the great god's servants, and Vilebroth Null humbly
prayed that he would never fall into similar error.
He felt sure that, had Thanquol known about this experiment, he
would have forbidden it, simply out of envy of one who possessed
knowledge of powers beyond his limited imagination. That was
why they had to scurry to the surface in secret and perform their rit-
uals without the grey seer's knowledge. The great work must
progress despite the machinations of those who would prevent it.
After the success of this plague, the foolish edicts of the Council of
Thirteen would be repealed, and Clan Pestilens could show its true
power to the world. And those like Grey Seer Thanquol who would
seek to prevent this most sacred of the Horned Rat's works would be
made to grovel in the dust.
Perhaps it was true, as some whispered, that Thanquol was a trai-
tor to the great skaven cause, and should be replaced by one more
humbly dedicated to the advancement of his people. It was an idea
that certainly deserved the scrutiny of lowly but devoted minds.
Null opened the cage which lay close at hand, reached in and
pulled out one of the large grey rats. It bit him viciously, drawing
some of his black blood, but Vilebroth Null hardly felt the sharp
teeth cleave his flesh. Pain was a near-meaningless concept to him.
He closed the cage and left the other rats scrabbling within.
Taking the subject by the tail and ignoring its frantic struggling,
he lowered it into the brew. The creature struggled as its head
entered the foul liquid. Its eyes gleamed madly and it scrabbled
frantically with its claws to try to keep itself above the surface. The
abbot of plague monks took his other hand and pushed it down
until its squeals were drowned out by the liquid entering its open
mouth. He held it under for so long that its struggles almost ceased
and then he drew it up again, still dripping, and set it down on the
floor of the vault.
The rat sat there for a moment, blinking in the light, as if unable
to believe that it had been reprieved. Null scooped it up and threw
it into the second cage, where the newly treated rats were. It sniffed
and vomited. Vilebroth Null scooped up some of the warm sickness
and tossed it back into the cauldron. Soon the cage would be full
and he would dispatch one of the brothers to release them in the
cemetery, there to begin the spread of the new plague. And tomor-
row, they would be sent far and wide through the city.
From somewhere Vilebroth Null heard coughing. In itself that
was not unusual. His followers were all blessed with the symptoms
of many diseases. No, there was something about the tone of the
coughing. It was different from that of a skaven. Deeper, slower,
almost human-like...
Felix cursed and tried to stop coughing, but it was no use. His
lungs were rebelling against the foul stench from within the vault.
Tears streamed from his eyes. He had never smelled anything quite
so foul in all his life. It was as if the combined essences of all stinks
in all the sickrooms he had ever smelled were assaulting his nostrils.
He felt ill just breathing it, and he had to fight down the urge sim-
ply to run off and vomit.
The sight of what was going on in the burial vault had not helped
settle his stomach either. He had glanced into a chamber illumi-
nated by the eerie glow of warpstone lanterns. In one long chamber,
a dozen or so of the foulest and most leprous-looking skaven he
had ever seen lolled amidst the opened sarcophagi of long-dead
nobles. Great stone coffins lay flat on the chamber's floor. Their lids
had been removed and their contents scattered. Skulls and bones
lay everywhere. Among them lay skaven, enervated and ill-looking,
sprawled in pools of their own pus and vomit and excrement, gnaw-
ing at the bones of the dead. At the far end of the room, the sickest
and most evil-looking skaven Felix had ever seen stirred a vast caul-
dron which rested upon a blazing fire, pausing now and again only
to spit in it or add some foul rotting meat torn from a worm-eaten
corpse.
Even as Felix had watched, one of the thing's own fingers had
dropped into the bubbling evil brew and the creature had not even
blinked. It had paused only for a breath and added a glowing dust
that could only be warpstone, and then continued to stir. Then he
had witnessed the strange ritual by which a living rat had been low-
ered into the foul brew and then recovered. Even the Slayer stood
rooted to the spot by horrified fascination, watching every move
made by the skaven as if trying to fix it forever in his mind.
Felix knew that what he was witnessing had something to do
with the spreading of the plague. He did not understand quite how
or why, but he was certain that it was so. These vile degenerate rats
and their hideous rune-inscribed cauldron had to be involved in the
creation of the disease. One look at their vile appearance told him
that it just had to be so. Then he had felt the uncontrollable urge to
cough. He had tried to hold it in, but the more he did so, the more
the inside of his lungs tickled and threatened to explode. Eventu-
ally, the cough had burst out of him. Unfortunately, it did so during
one of the rare moments of silence in the burial chamber.
Now the chief skaven stood frozen, its nose twitching, almost as
if it sensed Felix's presence - although how it could do so over the
cacophony of coughs, fruity farts and rasping breathing that filled
the chamber Felix could not deduce.
All doubts vanished, however, when it gestured in his direction
with one rotting paw. Felix breathed a prayer to Sigmar for protec-
tion and brought his sword to the ready position. Beside him
Gotrek stirred from his frozen horror, raised his axe and bellowed
his war cry.
Interlopers, Vilebroth Null thought! Humans had found their
way to this sacred place consecrated to the most holy manifestation
of the Horned Rat by his most humble servants. Had some vile
treachery brought them here, he wondered? Not that it mattered.
The fools would soon pay for their folly with their lives, for the
plague monks of Clan Pestilens were among the most deadly of all
skaven warriors when roused to righteous frenzy. And if that failed,
he could call on the mighty mystical powers loaned to him by his
foul god.
As Felix watched, the plague priest raised its staff high above its
head and threw back its head. It barked a series of incantations in
the skaven's high-pitched chittering language. The words seemed to
be wrenched from deep within it, forming into figures of fire on its
tongue. As it spat them out they became flaming runes which
burned on the retina, bending and flickering forth before leaping
out and touching each of its followers in turn. As they did so, a
great halo of sickly light surrounded the skavens' flesh and then
seemed to be absorbed into their bodies. The skavens' mangy fur
stood on end, their tails stiffened and an eerie glow entered their
eyes. They leapt to their feet with an electric grace and energy. High
keening cries of challenge were torn from their throats.
Gotrek charged into the warm, misty chamber, Felix following
him. The rat-men scuttled to their feet, picking up their loathsome,
crusted weapons. Gotrek struck right and left, killing as he went.
Nothing could stand in the way of his axe. No one sane or sensible
would have tried to resist it.
And yet these skaven did not turn and flee as other skaven might
have. They did not even hold their ground. Instead they attacked
with an insane frenzy which matched the Slayer's own. They sprang
forward, foam pouring from their mouths, their eyes rolling and
wild. For a moment, the Slayer was halted by the sheer force of their
rush and then they swarmed all over him, biting and clawing and
stabbing as they came.
Felix lashed out at the nearest and it turned, swift and sinuous as
a serpent to face him, air hissing from between its teeth, madness
evident in its eyes. He could see that yellow pus stained the ban-
dages around the creature's chest. He poked the area with his sword
and it sank in with a hideous slurping sound, almost as if Felix had
struck into jelly.
The pain did not stop the rat-man. It came straight at him, push-
ing forward against Felix's blade, driving it deeper into its own
chest. If it felt any pain, it gave no sign. Felix watched in horror as
it opened its mouth to reveal yellowish fangs and a white, leprously
furred tongue. He knew then that of all the bad things that might
happen here, letting the creature bite him was the worst.
He lashed out with his left fist, catching the plague monk on
the side of its snout, knocking its jaws to one side. The force of
the blow sent several rotting teeth flying out of the creature's
mouth to skitter across the dirty floor. It turned to glare at him
with wide, evil eyes. Felix took the opportunity to shift his weight,
hook his leg around the creature's own leg and send it toppling
to the floor. He turned his blade in the plague monk's chest as he
pulled it free but still the creature would not die. It beat at the
stone flagstones around it with its fist, in a spasm of horrid ner-
vous energy. Felix knew that evil sorcery was at work here, when
creatures so weak and sickly could prove so hard to kill.
He brought his boot crashing down on the creature's throat,
crushing its windpipe and pinning it in place while he hacked
repeatedly at it, and still the creature took a long time to die.
Felix looked around to see how Gotrek was doing. The Slayer was
holding his own against the crazed skaven, but no more. He held
one at bay with his huge hand but others swarmed over him, immo-
bilising his deadly axe arm. It was an enormous ruck, a wrestling
match between the Slayer's mighty strength and the horde of sor-
cerously enhanced plague monks.
Felix glanced around desperately, knowing that if the Slayer fell
he would have mere moments to live. The sound of padding foot-
steps behind him told him that more skaven were arriving,
returning from whatever insidious mission they had been on.
Runes of fire still leapt from the lips of the chanting priest. They
rushed over his head and Felix turned to see the eerie glow settle on
the fur of two more plague monks, and the awful transformation
overcome them. Things were not looking good, Felix thought.
Unless something was done about the priest, it was all over. Sick at
heart, he knew he was the only one in a position to do anything.
Without giving himself time to think, he vaulted on top of the
nearest sarcophagus. He leapt to the next one, passing over the melee
between Gotrek and the skaven, and kept moving towards the chant-
ing priest. More and more fiery runes sprang up between the priest
and its supporters and Felix knew for certain that the chanting leader
was the source of its follower's strength. His leaps brought him ever
closer to the bubbling cauldron and its hideous master. He paused
at the last, frozen for a moment by fear and indecision.
His next leap was going to have to carry him over the cauldron
and into combat with the priest. It was an awful prospect. One slip,
or a single misjudgement of the distance and he would find himself
in that bubbling brew. He did not even want to consider the conse-
quences of what would happen if he did that.
He heard Gotrek's war cry ring out and, turning, he saw the
Slayer struggling with the new arrivals. It looked like he had mere
moments in which to act. Offering up a silent prayer to Sigmar, Felix
leapt. He felt heat below him, and the foul vapours of the cauldron
caressed his face as he passed through them, then his feet connected
with the plague priest's face and they both tumbled to the ground.
The skaven's chanting stopped but it reacted with surprising
speed for one so decrepit, bounding to its feet as if on springs. Felix
lashed out with his sword but the skaven leapt back and brought its
bone staff down in a blurring arc which would have crushed Felix's
skull had he not leapt aside.
Felix hastily pulled himself to his feet and circled warily, looking
for an opening. From behind the cauldron, out of his sight, came
the sounds of hideous carnage, which he could only hope was
Gotrek piling into the plague monks. To his surprise, and unlike
most solitary skaven Felix had ever fought, the one in front of him
attacked swiftly and viciously. Felix parried another blow from the
staff with his sword, and was surprised by its speed and power. The
shock of the impact almost drove the sword from his hand. Another
blow rapped his knuckles and this time he let go of his blade. A
loathsome, oily tittering escaped from the skaven's lips as it saw the
look of shock on his face.
'Die! Die! Stupid man-thing!' it screeched in badly accented
Reikspiel. Once more the staff descended. This time Felix managed
to move aside, and it thudded into the ground where he had stood
mere moments before. Before the skaven could raise its staff again,
Felix made a grab for it. In a heartbeat he found himself wrestling
with the skaven for possession of the weapon. Its wiry strength was
far greater than Felix would have guessed. Its foetid jaws snapped
shut a hairsbreadth from his face. The sight of the diseased saliva
drooling from those broken fangs made Felix quiver, but he con-
tinued to grapple with a strength born of terror.
Now he had the advantage of weight. He was taller and far heav-
ier than the emaciated creature, and he used that advantage to spin
around on the spot, all the while continuing to tug at the creature.
When he had it facing in the right direction, he stopped pulling at
the staff and pushed instead. The surprised skaven went tumbling
backwards. It let out a shriek as its backside impacted on the hot
metal sides of the cauldron. Felix ducked down, grabbed its feet and
picked them up. With a mighty wrench he sent the skaven leader
tumbling into its own cauldron.
It vanished from sight for a moment beneath the surface of the
bubbling brew and then erupted from the surface, gasping for air,
horrid liquid dribbling from its jaws. Desperately it tried to climb out
of the cauldron. Felix picked up the staff and whacked it over the
head, forcing it back under. Then, prodding down with the staff, he
felt the struggling skaven move. Swiftly he pinned it firmly with the
staff and leaned forward with all his weight. The writhing skaven tried
to push back against him but Felix was too heavy to be moved.
Slowly its struggles ceased. Eventually Felix relaxed his weight and
breathed easily. Looking down from the dais he saw the Slayer lash
out with his axe and behead the last of the plague monks. The corpses
of the others lay in various stages of dismemberment at his feet. He
looked up at Felix and seemed almost disappointed to find out that
he was still alive. Felix grinned and gave him the thumbs-up sign.
At that moment, something horrible emerged from the cauldron
before him.
* * *
Vilebroth Null felt dreadful. He had swallowed so much of his
own brew that he felt like he was going to explode. He had taken
such a beating at the hands of that accursed human that even he
could feel the pain. Worse yet, he had almost been drowned like
a rat, yes, like a rat. It seemed like an eternity before that cruel
human had taken his weight off Null's own staff and given him a
chance to break the surface.
A quick glance around told him that all was lost. His acolytes lay
dead on the flagstones and the ferocious-looking dwarf with the
huge axe was racing towards him. Null felt that he had barely been
able to hold his own with the human. Against the two of them he
would have no chance whatsoever.
Now the surprised-looking human was recovering himself and
stooping for his sword. Null knew he had only one chance to act.
He threw up his arms, summoned all of his power and called up the
Horned Rat to save him. For a moment, nothing happened, and
Null knew that it was all over. The sword arced closer. He kept his
eyes open and forced himself to watch his own death approach.
Then he felt a faint tingling surround his body and knew that the
Horned Rat had answered his prayer.
Felix slashed with his sword, determined that this time there
would be no mistake. This time, the foul plague priest was going to
die, and Felix was going to chop it into little pieces just to be cer-
tain. The skaven shrieked what Felix hoped was a plea for mercy -
and something strange happened.
An eerie glow surrounded the skaven. Felix tried to stop his blow,
fearing some more noxious sorcery, but it was too late. Even as he
watched the blade connected but an odd thing happened. Space
seemed to fold in around the priest, and it shimmered and vanished
with a pop like a bubble bursting. Felix almost overbalanced as his
sword passed through the empty air where the rat-man had been.
'Damn,' he muttered and spat in frustration.
'I hate it when that happens,' Gotrek muttered, looking woefully
at the space where the skaven had stood. Felix cursed again and
muttered venomously as if by sheer force of his imprecations he
could make the skaven reappear for execution. He vaulted down
from the dais and kicked the severed head of a plague monk just to
relieve his frustrations. Then he glanced up at the Slayer. To his sur-
prise, the dwarf was looking almost thoughtfully at the cauldron.
'Well, manling,' he said, 'what are we going to do about this?'
Felix studied their surroundings. The place was strewn with
corpses. The tombs were broken open and the huge cauldron full
of its foul and contagious brew continued to bubble. The cages
which had held the rats had been broken at some point in the
struggle and a few of the beasts lurked in the shadows of the
room. Others had disappeared.
Felix himself was a mess. His clothes were covered in blood and
pus and the foul substances that the rat-men had exuded as they
died. His hair felt filthy and matted. The Trollslayer did not look
any better. He was bleeding from a dozen small cuts and gore
smeared his entire body. Some instinct told Felix that they needed
to get clean as soon as possible and that all those bites and
wounds should be treated by Drexler. Otherwise they might well
go bad.
The main problem, though, was the great cauldron. If what
Felix suspected was true, it represented as big a threat to the city as
an army of skaven, perhaps more so, for at least an army could be
fought against. Unfortunately, Felix was even less of an expert on
dark sorcery than he was on loathsome diseases. It seemed obvi-
ous that the brew needed to be destroyed in some manner that
rendered it harmless, but how?
Pouring it into the river might do more harm than good. Sim-
ply leaving it here would mean that the skaven might come back
and collect it at their leisure. They obviously had their own secret
ways into the Gardens of Morr and could come and go as they
pleased. Not to mention that their sorcery apparently allowed
them to vanish at will. There did not appear to be any way they
could set fire to the tomb.
As Felix considered all this, he realised that the Slayer had his
own ideas. While Felix thought, the dwarf was already busy lever-
ing the cauldron over with the blade of his axe. The contagious
brew spilled off the dais and onto the floor, covering the festering
corpses of the rat-men in a nasty viscous pool. Eventually, the
cauldron tipped over and lay there upside down.
'What are you doing?' Felix asked.
'Destroying this foul thing!' Gotrek took his axe and brought
the blade down on the cauldron. Sparks flashed and a hollow
booming sound echoed round the mausoleum chamber as the
starmetal blade connected with the sorcerously forged iron. The
runes flared along the axe blade and across the side of the skaven
artefact. Gotrek's blade smashed through the side of the cauldron.
There was a huge spark, followed by a mighty explosion of mysti-
cal energy, as the cauldron shattered into a thousand pieces. Felix
covered his eyes with his arm as bits of shrapnel flew everywhere,
adding to his mass of cuts.
The swirling surge of power stormed through the chamber.
Sparks flickered, corpses began to burn. Felix was surprised to see
that the dwarf still stood seemingly shocked by the result of his
actions. Felix saw felt something burning against his chest, and
realised that it was the talisman given to him by Drexler, apparently
overheated by its efforts to protect Felix from the force that had
been unleashed.
'Let's get out of here!' Felix yelled, and they dived for the entrance
through a blazing curtain of mystical energy.
Felix watched his old clothes burn. He had scrubbed himself
clean with coarse lye soap a dozen times and still he wasn't sure
he had removed the entire taint of the mortuary from himself. He
clutched the protective pomander tight and hoped that it would
prove efficacious against the plague. At least it seemed to have
cooled down. He pushed the memory of the previous night's
events aside. It had been a long trudge back from the Gardens of
Morr, helping the reeling Slayer to Drexler's door.
Gotrek stomped into the courtyard. His scratches had been
treated with some sort of ointment. He too carried one of Drexler's
amulets.
'Well, what did you expect?' he asked sourly. 'Dying of plague is
no death for a Slayer.'
Vilebroth Null looked around him. It was dark and gloomy, but
somehow he knew he was back in the Underways. The Horned Rat
had heard his prayer and his invocation of escape had worked. It
seemed obvious to Vilebroth Null that his lord had preserved his
most humble servant for a reason. And that reason was most likely
to uncover the vile traitor to the deity's cause who had betrayed the
abbot's scheme to that accursed meddling twosome.
On careful consideration, it seemed likely, even to an intellect as
lowly as his, that those two could never have found his carefully
concealed lair without help. It had been carefully chosen, well con-
cealed and ringed round with spells to baffle all scrying. No, those
two interfering fools must have had help from somewhere. It
seemed unlikely that they could have simply stumbled across the
lair. Vilebroth Null swore that he would uncover the traitor if it took
him the rest of his life, and that when he found him, the treacher-
ous rat-man would enjoy a slow and excruciating death.
And, thought Vilebroth Null as he began the long, limping
trudge back to the skaven army, he suspected that he had a good
idea where to start looking. As he hobbled back into the skaven
camp, he paid no attention to the number of warriors who started
to cough and sneeze as he passed.
BEASTS OF MOULDER
'The plague had come to Nuln. Fear stalked the
streets. Not even the corrupt authorities could keep
a lid on all the rumours that flew back and forth. On
every street corner one began to hear tales of mutants and
rat-men and huge wild-eyed rats which brought death and
disease to all they encountered. I can now reveal some of
the sinister truths behind those rumours...'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
'You're moving in high society these days, Felix,' Heinz the landlord
said, giving Felix Jaeger an uneasy grin.
'What do you mean?' the younger man asked.
'This came for you when you were out.' He handed Felix a sealed
letter. 'Twas delivered by a footman in the tabard of Her Highness,
the Countess Emmanuelle no less. He had a couple of the city guard
to keep him company too.'
A sudden sick feeling grabbed Felix in the pit of his stomach. His
eyes flickered towards the door, making sure he had a clear way out.
It looked like his past had caught up with him at last. Quickly he
reviewed all the things the authorities might want him for.
Well, there was a standing bounty on his and Gotrek's heads
posted by the authorities in Altdorf for their involvement in the
Window Tax riots. There was the fact that he had murdered the
Countess's chief of secret police, Fritz von Halstadt. Not to mention
the fact that they had been involved in burning her new College of
Engineering to the ground.
How had they found him? Had they been recognised by one of
the hundreds of informers who swarmed through the city? Or was
it something else entirely? Where was Gotrek? Perhaps if they
moved quickly enough they could still escape the jaws of the trap.
'Aren't you going to read it then?' Heinz asked, naked curiosity
showing in his eyes. Felix shook his head, his reverie broken. He
realised that his heart was pounding and his palms were sweating.
Noting the way Heinz was looking at him, he realised that he must
look guilty as sin. He forced a sickly grin onto his face.
'Read what?'
The bloody letter, idiot. You must be able to tell we're all dying
of curiosity here.'
Felix glanced around, and saw that Elissa, Heinz, and the rest of
the staff were all staring at him quite openly, keen to know what
business the ruler of their great city-state might have with him.
'Of course, of course,' Felix said, forcing himself to remain calm, to
make his hands stop shaking. He walked over to his customary chair
by the fire and sat down. The horde of curious onlookers followed
him over and scrutinised his face intently. Felix glared at them mean-
ingfully until they all backed off, then gave his consideration to the
letter.
It was inscribed on the very finest vellum, and his name was writ-
ten in good quality ink. There were no blots or smudges and
whoever the scribe was possessed a fine hand indeed. The wax seal
had not been broken and it showed the crest of the Elector Count-
ess.
A measure of calm returned to Felix. You did not write letters to
men you were going to arrest. If you were a stickler for formalities,
you read them the warrant and then clapped them in irons. If you
were the Elector Countess Emmanuelle, your thugs bashed them
over the head with a club and they woke up in chains in the Iron
Tower. Perhaps, he told himself, things were not going to be so bad
after all. Still, he doubted this. In his experience, in this life what-
ever could go bad did go bad.
With nervous fingers he broke the seal and studied the message
within. It was written in the same beautiful and courtly hand as the
address, and was as simple as it was enigmatic:
Herr Jaeger,
You are commanded to present yourself at the palace of Her
Serene Highness, the Countess Emmanuelle, at the evening bell
on this day.
Yours in faith,
Hieronymous Ostwald, Secretary to Her Serene Highness
How very curious, thought Felix, turning the letter over and over
in his hands, as if by doing so he would find some clue as to why
he was being summoned. There was none. He was left to wonder
what the ruler of one of the greatest fiefdoms of the Empire might
want with a penniless mercenary wanderer, and no answers were
forthcoming. He realised that everybody was still staring at him. He
stood up and smiled.
'It's all right. I've just been invited to visit the countess,' he said
eventually.
Elissa still looked impressed and a little shocked, as if she could
not quite believe there wasn't some mistake.
'It's a great honour,' she told him as they sat together by the fire.
'I'm sure it's nothing. It's probably for my brother, Otto, and was
sent here by mistake.' He reached out and took her hand. She pulled
it away quickly. She had been doing that a lot recently.
'You will go, won't you?' she said, and smiled.
'Of course. I cannot refuse a command from the local ruler.'
Then what will you wear?' He was going to say 'my own clothes,
of course', but immediately saw her point. His tunic was stained
and soiled in a hundred places from all the brawling and fights he
had been in. His cloak was ragged and ripped at the hems where
strips had been torn from it to make bandages. His boots were
holed and cracked. His britches were patched and filthy. He looked
more like a beggar than a warrior. He doubted that he would be
able to get past the front gate of the palace looking like he did. They
were more likely to throw him a bone and send him on his way
with kicks.
'Don't worry,' he said. 'I'll think of something.'
'Best do it quickly then. You've only got eight hours till the
evening bell.'
Felix looked across the desk at his brother. Newly bathed and with
his tattered clothes hastily washed and dried in front of the fire, he
felt self-conscious. His hands toyed idly with the silvered pomander
which dangled from his neck. He wished he'd never come to the
warehouse where Otto's office was located.
Otto got up from behind his heavy oaken desk and lumbered
over to the window. He put his hands behind his back. Felix noticed
that his right hand was clutching his left wrist. It was an old habit
of Otto's. He had always done that when called upon to answer dif-
ficult questions by their tutors.
'Why do I only see you when you want something, Felix?' he
asked eventually.
Felix felt a surge of guilt. Otto had a point. The only times he had
been near his brother recendy was when he had needed a favour.
Like he did now. He considered the question. It wasn't that he dis-
liked Otto. It was just that they had nothing much in common
anymore. And perhaps, Felix feared that he would ask him to join
the business again, and he would have to refuse again.
'I've been busy,' he said.
'Doing what?'
Crawling through graveyards, burning scholarly institutions to
the ground, fighting monsters, killing things, Felix thought, won-
dering how much, if any, of this he would ever be able to tell his
brother. Fortunately Otto did not give him a chance to reply, as he
had some suggestions of his own.
'Brawling, I suppose. Hanging about with tavern wenches and
rakes. Frittering away that expensive education father paid for.
When you should be here, helping run the business, following in
the family tradition, helping to make...'
Felix could not tell whether Otto was angry or simply hurt. He
fought to keep his own feelings under control. He stretched his
legs out, pushing the chair back until it rested on its two rear legs.
A huge portrait of his father glared down at him from behind
Otto's desk. Even from up there, the old man managed to look
somehow disapproving.
'Do you know the Countess Emmanuelle?' The question inter-
rupted the flow of Otto's ranting, as Felix had intended it to. His
brother stopped, turned around and looked sharply at his
younger brother.
'I met her on the last high feast day of Verena, when I was pre-
sented at court. She seemed a spirited and somewhat flighty young
woman.'
Otto paused and turned away from the window. He slumped
back into his comfortable chair again and opened a huge ledger.
He had marked his place with a quill pen. It was a gesture so rem-
iniscent of his father that Felix smiled. For a moment Otto's brow
furrowed in concentration. He dipped the pen in the inkwell and
inscribed something in the ledger. Without looking at Felix, he
said: 'I've heard some rumours about her.'
Felix leaned forward until he almost touched Otto's neatly
arranged desk. The front legs of his chair clunked back onto the
stone floor. 'Rumours?'
Otto cleared his throat and smiled in embarrassment. 'She's sup-
posed to be somewhat wild. More than somewhat, actually. It's not
uncommon at Emmanuelle's court. They are all, shall we say, a lit-
tle less than moral.'
'Wild?' Felix enquired. His interest was piqued. 'In what way?'
'She's said to be the mistress of half the young nobles of the
Empire. Has a particular fondness for rakes and duellists. There
have been a number of scandals, apparently. Only rumours, of
course, and I don't pay any attention to gossip,' he added hastily,
like a man who fears that what he is saying might suddenly be
overheard. 'Why do you ask?'
Felix placed the letter on top of the ledger which Otto had been
studying. His brother picked it up and turned it over in his hands.
He studied the broken seal then slid the parchment from out of the
envelope and read it. Otto smiled the same cold and calculating
smile that their father showed in the portrait above.
'So you're moving among the nobility now. I won't ask how this
has come about.'
It had been their father's ambition to buy the family's way into
the nobility for as long as he could remember. So far he had not
succeeded, but Felix reckoned that it was only a matter of time.
The old man was both wealthy and persistent. Otto continued to
give him that long, measuring look. He ran his eyes over Felix's
old and tattered clothing.
'Of course, you need money,' he said eventually. Felix looked
back, considering his options. He didn't really want to take his fam-
ily's money but under the circumstances it seemed advisable. He
would certainly need better clothing for his visit to the court.   .
'Yes, brother,' he said.
Felix walked out through the warehouse door feeling slightly sick
of himself. The pouch of gold jingling within his jerkin was like a
badge of his betrayal of his own ideals. The letter from Otto
instructing any of the Jaeger businesses to give him what he
required seemed tainted with his own greed. After so much time
spent shunning his family, the generosity seemed almost excessive.
Felix shook his head and strode across to the river wharves. He
looked down into the grey, misty murk of the Reik and studied the
great barges which had come all the way from Altdorf carrying their
cargoes of Bretonnian wines and Estalian silks. They lay at rest
along the piers, like whales momentarily surfaced, bobbing in the
river flow. He watched the sweating dockhands lifting the casks
from the holds with hooked knives, and saw them roll heavy bar-
rels up long gangplanks towards the warehouse. And he heard loud
coughs and saw men holding handkerchiefs over their mouths. The
plague had claimed hundreds over the past few weeks.
It seemed that his and Gotrek's efforts in the Gardens of Morr
had at best slowed its spread, and at worst had no effect at all. He
wondered how it was spread, and in his mind, he pictured the rats
that the plague monk had been dipping into that vile cauldron.
Somehow he just knew they had something to with it.
One of the men, older than the rest, remembered Felix from his
younger days. He raised his hand and waved at him. Felix waved
back. He could not even remember the man's name, but he was
shocked to find him still labouring away after all these years. The
dock worker had not been young even then.
Here, Felix thought, was the difference between the nobility of the
Empire and those they ruled. That docker would continue to work for
the pittance which the Jaeger family paid him until he keeled over and
died. The nobles would lounge in their palaces, collecting the rev-
enues of their estates and never raise their hands in honest toil in all
their lives. There were times when Felix found himself in agreement
with the revolutionists who preached rebellion across the Empire.
He smiled ironically. Fine words, he told himself, for a man who
had just taken a hefty handout from his own rich family. Well, he
had not made this world, he just had to live in it. He turned and
walked along the bank of the river, losing himself in the sounds and
smells and sights of the dockside.
The smell of fish assaulted his nostrils. Felix gagged and held the
pomander he had acquired from Doctor Drexler under his nose. Its
perfumed scent was starting to fade, but it was still enough to
sweeten the tainted air. Felix noticed that the smells of the street and
other people seemed keener now that he'd had his first bath in
weeks.
The rumble of huge drayage carts competed with the shouts of
the dock workers. An armed guard in the black tabard of the city-
state stopped to take a pear from the cart of a small trader. A child
pickpocket made a daring rush for the purse of an old trader too
poor to afford bodyguards. It was all very much as Felix remem-
bered it from his childhood visits to Nuln with his father and
brothers. He headed onwards, making for the better part of town.
He had a niggling feeling that someone was following him, but
when he turned around to look no one was there.
Felix studied his reflection in the mirror. Very nice, he thought. He
knew he cut a fine figure. At the best of times he was tall, athletic and
quite good-looking, if he said so himself. Now he was dressed to
make the most of it. He took a deep breath, revelling in the smell of
luxury, of oak panelling and fine old leather. This discreet tailor's
shop, catering only to the highest category of nobles, was one of the
Jaeger family's less well-known businesses. It had not even existed
when Felix had last been in Nuln. It had been set up by Otto, using
introductions passed on by the late Fritz von Halstadt. For once Felix
was glad of Otto's corrupt association with the man he had killed.
His fine new clothes felt strange. The high leather boots pinched.
The tunic felt a little stiff, the padded lining felt too soft. The white
linen shirt smelled too fresh. He realised how used he had become
to the harsh life on the road, when he had not changed his clothes
for months. Only the new cloak of red Sudenland wool felt famil-
iar. It resembled his old one, ruined by skaven blood during the
attack on the Blind Pig. The sword he had taken from the Templar,
Aldred, was encased in a fine new sheath of plain black leather.
'Would sir like any alterations made?' the assistant asked obse-
quiously.
Felix studied the bald-headed, sour faced fellow. Only an hour
ago,  when  Felix had  entered  the shop,  the  assistant had
inspected him as if he were a particularly large and repulsive
cockroach. In a way, Felix could not blame him. He had been
dressed like a beggar. Of course, the assistant's attitude had
changed within seconds of reading Otto's hastily scrawled note.
When Otto Jaeger himself told his minions to give this client
anything he wanted, fawning courtesy was thrown in as part of
the bargain.
Felix gave the man his best condescending smile. 'No. I would
like several copies of these garments delivered to my residence
within the day. And have my old clothing packed and returned
immediately.'
'Of course, sir. And where would sir's residence be?'
'At the sign of the Blind Pig, in the New Quarter. Have the
clothes delivered to Felix Jaeger.'
Felix enjoyed looking at the man's face when he gave the
address. He looked as if he had just swallowed that large and
particularly nasty cockroach.
'The Blind Pig, sir? Isn't that a-'
'Where I stay is my own business, don't you think?'
'Of course, sir. It is simply that sir took one rather by surprise
for a moment. A thousand apologies.'
'No need. Just make sure my clothes are delivered on time.'
'I will see to it personally, sir.'
Felix wondered if the man would have the nerve to come to
the New Quarter himself. Maybe he would. He was obviously
paid enough to make it worth his while to stay in Felix's favour.
'Will that be all, sir?'
'For the moment, yes.'
Felix emerged from the tailor's into the late afternoon gloom.
He glanced around. No pursuers were visible. If there had actu-
ally been any, perhaps they had grown bored with waiting while
Felix was in the tailor's. He hoped so at least.
He noticed he was standing taller and he felt more poised
than he had before. He carried himself like a different man from
the weary wanderer who had presented himself at Otto Jaeger's
warehouse earlier. It was amazing the difference a bath and a
change of clothes could make in a man.
A feeling of nervous anticipation had been gathering in his
stomach all day. It was not quite fear. It was more like a vague
uneasiness about what he would encounter within Elector
Countess Emmanuelle's palace. He was forced to admit that he
prayed he would not embarrass himself in front of the nobility.
He considered that thought for a moment, then forced a smile.
His manners were good. He was well-spoken and well-dressed.
There was nothing to be afraid of. Yet he knew this was not true. The
nobility did not like upstart newcomers from the merchant class.
During his time at university he had endured many snubs by young
nobles who had taken pains to communicate this to him. At the
same time, he had always resented being looked down on by peo-
ple who were often stupider and less well-educated than he, whose
only qualification was that they happened to be bom into the right
inbred bloodline. Now he could not help but laugh at himself. He
was certainly not working himself into the correct frame of mind for
this interview.
He thanked Sigmar for small mercies: at least Gotrek had not
been summoned as well. He could just picture a confrontation
between the local high-born and the sullen Trollslayer. It would be
an encounter fated to end in disaster. Felix had never known the
Slayer show deference to anything or anyone, and he doubted that
the countess or her minions would appreciate his independence of
spirit.
Suddenly a new problem presented itself, and one that he had
not even bothered to consider earlier. The streets were muddy and
full of rubbish. The gutters were overflowing. The crowds were
unwashed and tightly pressed. He could not get to the palace
without some of the dirt of the streets transferring itself to his
superb new clothes. He knew it would never do to appear at the
palace looking less than immaculate. He glanced around, hoping
that a solution would present itself.
He gestured with his arm, summoning a passing palanquin. The
litter's curtains were open, showing it was for hire. The two burly
bearers approached him deferentially. Felix was startled for a
moment. Normally two such bravoes would have cursed him or
exchanged coarse jibes, but now they were all attentive respect. Of
course, he realised, it was the clothes. They saw him as a rich noble
and a potentially lucrative fare. It was an impression which was in
no way diminished when he said: 'The palace, and swiftly.'
He clambered into the plushly upholstered seat and the bearers
set off at a fast striding pace. Felix pulled open the curtains at the
back of the palanquin, checking to see if he was being followed
once more. Was it just his imagination or had someone just ducked
back into the mouth of that alley?
The way to the palace was steep and winding. The townhouses of
the nobility arrayed themselves around the highest hill in the city.
From where Felix sat he could see a fine view of the roofs of the
merchants below, and the great curve of the River Reik. He could see
the spires of the temples and the great building site where workmen
laboured to rebuild the College of Engineering.
Horses' hooves clattered on the cobbled streets. Coaches swept
past. Servants in the liveries of a dozen famous families swarmed
everywhere, carrying messages, leading beasts, holding great
satchels full of provisions. The lowest of them were better dressed
than some of the city's merchants, and the highest ranking wore
uniforms scarcely less ornate than a mercenary captain's. Everyone
looked cleaner and better fed than the commoners down below.
Here and there nobles garbed in splendid raiment walked with
their retainers and bodyguards, the crowd parting as if under the
influence of some mysterious force before them. Felix studied their
haughtiness, thinking that he recognised a few of the younger ones
who played at being poor in the Blind Pig of an evening. He
doubted that any of them would recognise him now.
Ahead of them loomed the walls of the palace. It dwarfed the
stately townhouses around it. Even now, with its walls replastered
and ornate statuary lining the approach, it looked far more like a
fortress than a palace. The great arch of the gateway was huge, and
the heavy oaken gates were shod with bronze and looked like they
could resist a hundred battering rams. Sentries barred the entrance
and scrutinised all who attempted to pass. Some were recognised
immediately and allowed to go in unhindered. Others were stopped
and challenged, and Felix guessed he would be in the latter cate-
gory.
He tapped on the canopy of the palanquin to indicate that they
should stop, paid the footmen the two silver shillings and added
another shilling for a tip, then watched them depart. He patted his
tunic to make sure his summons was still there, then strode as con-
fidently as he could manage in the direction of the gate.
When one of the guards asked him his business, he showed them
the letter and the seal and was surprised when a tall, lean man
garbed all in black emerged from within the gatehouse. He looked
at Felix with cold, grey eyes.
'Herr Jaeger,' he said in a calm, emotionless voice. 'If you would
be so good as to accompany me? I will explain the nature of this
business on the way.'
Filled with sudden trepidation, Felix fell into step beside him. He
could not help but notice that two armed guards dogged their steps.
They moved down long corridors, passed through a series of gal-
leries and an enormous ballroom, before going down some steps
into the dungeons below. Somewhere in the distance, the evening
bell tolled.
Felix studied the office warily. It was large and sumptuously fur-
nished, not at all what he had expected. He had expected a torture
chamber or a cell, but not this. Nevertheless, the two men-at-arms
had followed them in and positioned themselves against the far
wall where they stood, immobile. As Felix watched, a lamplighter
in the livery of the palace entered, carrying a small ladder. Another
bearing only a lit taper clambered up the ladder and lit the candles
set in the massive chandelier. Its light dimmed the rays of the set-
ting sun that filtered in through the narrow window.
The tall man gestured to the massive leather armchair which sat
in front of his equally enormous desk. 'Please, Herr Jaeger, be
seated.'
Felix allowed himself to sink into the chair. The tall man wan-
dered over to the window and stared out for a moment, before
pulling the heavy brocade drapes dosed. He considered the win-
dow as if he were looking at it for the first time. It was narrow,
obviously designed as an arrow slit.
'This place was a fortress before it was a palace,' he said.
His words hung in the air. Felix turned them over, wondering if
there was some hidden meaning. He did not respond but waited
for the man to continue, to amplify his statement if he was going
to. The man considered this and smiled for the first time. His teeth
were a brilliant white and made even his pale skin look sallow.
'Forgive me, Herr Jaeger; you are not quite what I expected.'
'And what did you expect, Herr... ?'
The man bowed as one would to an opponent who had just
scored a point in a fencing match. 'Forgive me, once more. It has
been a long and harrowing day and I quite forget my manners. I
am Heironymous Ostwald. I am the personal secretary to Her
Serenity.'
Felix was not sure whether he should rise and bow back. He was
not given the chance. Ostwald moved swiftly behind his desk and
sat down. Felix noticed that even in that comfortable chair he sat
with his back straight, like someone used to the iron discipline of
a soldier.
'In answer to your question, from the description I had of you,
I expected someone less... polished than yourself. Serves me right,
I suppose.' He opened a small leather book in front of him. 'You
are a member of the Jaeger family, I see. Good. Very good.'
'Why am I here?'
'Dieter! Johan! You may wait outside.' Ostwald gestured to the
men-at-arms. They opened the door and quietly and discreetly
vacated the room. Once they had gone, Ostwald steepled his fin-
gers and started again.
'Tell me, Herr Jaeger, are you familiar with the skaven?'
Felix felt like his heart was about to stop. His mouth felt sud-
denly dry. He considered his words very carefully indeed. 'I know
of them. I am not personally acquainted with any.'
Ostwald laughed again. It was a cold, mechanical laugh and
there was no humour in it. 'Very good. I had understood that this
was not the case.'
'What are you getting at?' Felix's nervousness made him sound
snappish. He did not know the way this conversation was going
but he could imagine several possible outcomes, none of them
pleasant.
'Merely that you have served in the sewer watch and you
claimed to your superiors there that you had encountered them.
Is that not the case?'
'You know it is.'
'Yes. I do.' Again Ostwald smiled. 'You do not seem to me like
a typical sewerjack, Herr Jaeger. The sons of rich merchants rarely
leap at the chance to hunt goblins in our sewers.'
Felix was getting used to this now. He was not as surprised as
he might have been by the unexpected nature of the statement.
He could see that this was all part of Ostwald's technique. He
liked to keep the people he was dealing with off-balance. It was
like getting the measure of your opponent in a duel. Felix smiled
back at him.
'I am the black sheep of my family.'
'Indeed. How interesting. You must explain to me how that
came about some time.'
'I suspect you already know.'
'Perhaps. Perhaps. Let us return to the skaven, Herr Jaeger. How
many times have you encountered them?'
'On several occasions.'
'How many precisely?'
Felix counted the number of times he was prepared to admit
to. There was the encounter in the sewer. There was the attack on
the Blind Pig. There was his fight in the Gardens of Morr. He
decided that under the circumstances it might be undiplomatic to
mention his meeting with the rat-ogre in von Halstadt's house
and his battle with the warlocks of Skryre in the College of Engi-
neering.
Three.'
Ostwald consulted his book again. Another piece of the puzzle fit-
ted into place, Felix thought to himself. He doesn't really know
anything. He's just fishing. His style is to intimidate people and then
see what they let slip. Of course, thought Felix, this knowledge will do
you no good, if he orders you taken down into the dungeons and tor-
tured. He decided to try a few questions himself.
'On whose authority are you doing this?' he asked.
The Elector Countess Emmanuelle's,' Ostwald said with absolute
certainty. Why do you ask?'
'I am just trying to work out what is going on here.'
Ostwald gave him a long cold chilling smile. 'I can explain that to
you quite easily, Herr Jaeger. What do you know of Fritz von Halstadt?'
Once again, Felix felt his heart leap into his mouth. He fought to
keep his guilt and his surprise off his face. A slight amused flicker in
Ostwald's eyes told him that the man had noticed something.
'It's a familiar name,' he said. 'I think I saw him once at my brother's
club.'
Very good, Herr Jaeger. Allow me to share something with you -
on the understanding on your word as a gentleman, that nothing I tell
you goes beyond the confines of this room.'
The tone in which the words were said told Felix that Ostwald was
not simply counting on his word as a gentleman. Felix did not doubt
that there would be serious and violent reprisals if he betrayed the
man's confidence.
'Please go ahead. You have my word I will tell no one.'
'Fritz von Halstadt was murdered.'
Felix thought he was going to be struck down on the spot. He felt
sure that his guilt was written all over his face and that Ostwald was
going to summon the guard to have him thrown into the dungeon.
'By the skaven.'
Felix let out a long, rushing sigh of relief.
'I can see you are appalled, Herr Jaeger.'
'Am I?' Felix collected his scattered wits. 'I mean - aren't I just?'
Yes. It's a terrifying thought, isn't it? I will tell you something else.
Fritz von Halstadt was no ordinary servant of the crown. He was the
chief of Her Serenity's secret police. We think he must have discovered
some skaven plot and been murdered because of it.'
If you'd used the word 'joined' instead of 'discovered', I would have
to agree with you, Felix thought. What he said instead was: 'What
makes you think this?'
'In the burned-out remains of his home we found the skeleton of a
creature that was not human. We suspect that it was some monster
conjured by the skaven to assassinate Von Halstadt. He must have
fought with it and killed it, then died of his wounds. The house was
probably set on fire during their struggle.'
'Go on.'
'Interestingly enough, soon after that there was an attempt on
your life. As far as I know, you and your associate, the dwarf Gur-
nisson, were the only people who had then claimed to have seen
the skaven. Perhaps this was an effort to cover their tracks.'
'I think I see what you mean.'
'There are other things you may not know, Herr Jaeger, and I tell
you them now only so you will realise the seriousness of the situa-
tion. You may have heard that there was a fire at the College of
Engineering?'
'Yes.'
'What you may not be aware of is that the fire was the work of the
skaven too. I assure you, Herr Jaeger, this is nothing to smile about.
The gods were against those rat-man devils in one way. There seems
to have been some sort of accident, for we found many skaven
corpses at the scene.'
'Why have I not heard more of this?' Felix said.
'You would have, except that Her Serenity deemed it wise to
avoid a panic, and panic there would surely be if the common herd
were to find out that our city is under siege by the skaven!'
Felix was astonished. After many fruitless attempts by himself to
get someone to take the skaven threat seriously, someone was now
trying to convince him of it! He did not know whether to laugh or
be angry. He decided to play the part allotted to him, for on con-
sideration he realised that showing more knowledge than Ostwald
believed him to have could easily prove dangerous.
'I am not joking, Herr Jaeger. Since you and Gurnisson reported
the presence of skaven war parties in the sewers, there have been
other sightings, skirmishes even. And bands of the rat-men have
even raided our docks by night, stealing food and even a grain
barge. I tell you, we are under siege.'
'Siege? Isn't that a little strong? Where are the armies, the war
engines, the chittering hordes?'
'They are strong words, Herr Jaeger, and in truth the situation
calls for them. The chief of secret police assassinated. Citizens
assaulted. A great Imperial armoury destroyed - and now the threat
of plague!'
'I-'
'Now, Herr Jaeger. I know you take this seriously. I know you
have some knowledge of this. We have a mutual acquaintance and
he has told me all about your actions in this matter.'
'Mutual acquaintance?'
Ostwald produced a pomander similar to the one that hung
about Felix's neck. He held it beneath his nose and breathed deeply
from it before setting it down upon the desk.
'I refer, of course, to Herr Doctor Drexler. He has told me about
your visit to the Gardens of Morr and what you found there. He
treated your henchman, after all.'
'How do you know Doctor Drexler?' Felix asked to buy some
time. He fervently hoped Ostwald never referred to Gotrek as his
henchman within the Slayer's hearing.
'As a patient and as a friend. He is the physician to many noble
families.'
'But-'
'I see that you are aware of another and deeper connection. I sus-
pected a man of your resources might.'
Felix had being going to ask 'But why did Drexler tell you all
this?' but he decided to keep his mouth shut and see what coldly
clever explanation this cold and clever man came up with.
'I tell you this only because the situation is truly desperate, Herr
Jaeger, and we badly need your help.'
Things must be desperate indeed, thought Felix, if you need my
help. Particularly when I haven't a clue about what you're talking
about.
'Drexler and I are both initiates of the Order of the Hammer.' As
he said this, he made a peculiar variation of the sign of the hammer
over his heart, reversing the normal order, of left, right, centre,
down. 'You have heard of us?'
'Some sort of Sigmarite secret society,' Felix guessed. It was not a
difficult guess to make. The hammer was the sign of the Imperial
Cult, and there were many strange hidden societies with their own
signs and passwords.
That is correct. An order of dedicated men sworn to protect our
ancient civilisation from the threat of Chaos. We share many goals
and much ancient knowledge. He tells me that Aldred himself
chose you as his successor.'
'Successor?' Felix was bewildered.
'You bear his blade, Herr Jaeger. You knew the man.'
'Mmm...'
'I know Herr Aldred was a member of several secret orders as well
as the one to which he nominally belonged. He was a devout and
fearless man, Herr Jaeger. Much like yourself he dedicated himself
to fighting the forces of Chaos wherever he found them.'
'I do not belong to his order.'
'I can understand that you would deny this, Herr Jaeger. Herr Aldred
belonged to many orders with even stricter vows of secrecy than our
own. I will not press you on this.'
Just as well, Felix thought wryly, otherwise you'd find out exactly the
depth of my ignorance.
Ostwald paused for a moment and then spoke as if trying to change
the subject: 'Drexler tells me that you possess a great deal of knowledge
yourself
'I possess only a little.'
'It may be that the little you know is actually a great deal, Herr Jaeger.
Tell me about this strange skaven who writes you the letters of warn-
ing. How did you meet it?'
So, Felix thought, this is where all this talk of secret societies and
grave threats is leading. It is an attempt to get this information.
He realised that Drexler must have reported their entire conversa-
tion to Ostwald, so he saw no sense in hiding anything about the letter.
'I have never met it,' Felix said honesdy. 'In truth I have no idea why
it has selected me to communicate with. Perhaps it hasn't. Perhaps it
has chosen Gotrek.'
That seems unlikely, Herr Jaeger, given the dwarf's avocation. No, I
am convinced that you are the chosen one. Why?'
'Perhaps because I can read.'
'You can read skaven runes?'
'No, but I can read Imperial script.'
'So the letter was written in Imperial script?' Ostwald looked aston-
ished.
'Of course. How else could I read it?'
'You have these letters on you?'
'No, they vanished in a puff of smoke five heartbeats after I read
them,' Felix said ironically. He was going to add that he did not nor-
mally carry the letters on his person but Ostwald interrupted him.
'Powerful sorcery indeed! Herr Jaeger, you must understand some-
thing. I have taken over Fritz von Halstadt's duties. The security of this
great state of Nuln lies in my hands. Should this skaven contact you
again, well, you must inform me at once.'
'Nothing would please me more,' Felix said sincerely.
'No, please take me seriously, Herr Jaeger. I sense that you know
more than you are currendy willing to tell me. That is fair. We must all
have our little secrets. But I must insist that you let me know. I want no
more midnight forays into the graveyards. I know you are a brave and
resourceful man, but these things are best dealt with by the authorities.'
'I agree completely.'
'Good, Herr Jaeger. Do not attempt to deceive me in this. My
reach is long.'
'I would not dream of it. You have my word.'
'Good. Then you are free to go. Just remember-'
'Do not worry, Herr Ostwald. Rest assured I will inform you as
soon as I learn anything of the skaven's plans,' Felix said, fervently
hoping against hope that he never ever came into the possession of
such information again.
Izak Grottle pulled himself from his palanquin and lumbered over
to the great barred window. His breathing was heavy and already he
felt hungry. It had been a long trudge through the Underways to
reach this secret burrow. Soon it would be time to eat once more. He
congratulated himself. It was amazing from what simple sources the
most brilliant of inspirations sprang. The entire enormous effort of
this secret research warren had sprung from his own hunger. He
doubted that any other skaven would ever have thought of some-
thing so simple and yet so inspired. Let others come up with
intricate and complex schemes, thought Grottle! Soon he would
demonstrate to all of them that the simplest plans were the best.
He looked down into the great warp vats and saw the monsters
taking shape within their bubbling, glowing feeding fluids. He
inspected the massive warpstone orbs which fed carefully measured
jolts of mutating power into the vats when the watching vatmasters
deemed the conditions perfect. The rank smell of ozone and strange
chemicals wafted up and made his nostrils twitch. It was a reassur-
ing smell to him, the smell of the warrens in which his clan had
raised him, from where he had begun the long climb to the power
that he wielded today.
He smiled, showing his great yellow fangs and felt the pangs of
his dreadful hunger once more. All skaven suffered from it from time
to time, usually after combat or some other violent activity. They
called it the Black Hunger and for most of them it was a sign of tri-
umph and indicator that they could devour prey. Izak Grottle
suffered from it all the time. He had long suspected that continual
exposure to warpstone dust and mutagenic chemicals had done
something to him. He would not be the first Clan Moulder pack-
master to acquire the stigmata of some mutation, nor would he be
the last. In his case he also suspected that the change had done
something to his brain - stimulated it, made him much cleverer and
more cunning than other skaven, rewarded him with fantastic
insight. That was why he needed to eat so much, of course, to fuel
his incredible mind.
He stuffed his own tail into his mouth to try to control the terri-
ble hunger pangs. Great gobs of saliva drooled down the bulbous
flesh. He had already devoured every last scrap of the huge mound
of dried meat he had intended to see him through his visit. He
knew there was nothing much edible in this alchemical laboratory
except his own bearers, and, in fairness, they had done nothing
today to displease him. The jars all around contained mostly toxic
chemicals; nothing there for him. He breathed deeply and fought to
bring his appetite back under control.
Skitch looked up at him nervously. Grottle could tell that the lit-
tle hunchbacked skaven was uneasy. Perhaps he was thinking of all
the other lackeys which rumour claimed that the packmaster had
devoured. Grottle licked his lips with his long pink tongue. As he
liked to tell all of his research vermin, those rumours were utterly
true. The light of warpstone lanterns illuminated the pebble-thick
lenses that Skitch used to compensate for his bad eyesight. Grottle
nodded his head and twitched his tail just for the pleasure of seeing
Skitch leap back nervously.
Skitch was small and weak, and so near-sighted that he could
hardly see one paw in front of his face without his glasses. In many
other skaven clans, such weakness would soon have caused him to
have been killed and eaten, but Clan Moulder had recognised his
potential and kept him alive and for that, Grottle knew, the little
runt was truly grateful. And he had proven useful to Clan Moulder.
Skitch was quite possibly the best vatmaster in the long and glorious
history of the clan. He was a genius when it came to breeding and
moulding all manner of beasts. Now he held out the cage that con-
tained what was most likely to be Clan Moulder's greatest triumph.
Izak Grottle took the cage and inspected its contents. It was a
huge, sleek fat female rat, already pregnant by the looks of things.
The untrained eye would detect very little different from an ordi-
nary rat, Grottle thought. Perhaps they would think it a little larger,
a bit more vicious. Perhaps they would even notice the wicked
gleam of some abnormal emotion in its eye. But they would never
suspect that they were looking at one of the most potent weapons
the world had ever known.
'It doesn't look like much, does it?' Grottle said in his slow, deep
rumbling voice. 'Does it?'
Grottle liked to repeat himself. He was proud of his voice, so
powerful and so unlike a normal skaven voice. Skitch knew a cue
when he heard one.
'Perhaps not, master - but then appearances are deceptive.' The
vatmaster's voice was unusually high for a skaven's, and his words
had an odd insinuating quality. This beauty will lay waste to entire
cities, will bring nations to their knees, will cause the world to bow
before the genius of Clan Moulder!'
Grottle nodded in a slow, satisfied way. He knew this was true.
He just liked to hear his lackey say it. 'You are sure there will be no
problems, Skitch? Absolutely sure?'
'Yes, yes, master, I am certain. We have bred thousands of these
creatures and we have tested many of them to destruction in the
approved manner.'
'Good! Good! And what did you find?'
They have a huge appetite for almost any material. They will eat
wood and waste if nothing else is available, but mostly they seek
out and devour grain, meat and other foodstuffs.'
'Excellent.'
They can consume their own body weight in less than a hundred
heartbeats and be ready to eat again in hours.'
'You have done splendidly, Skitch. Splendidly.'
The hunchback seemed almost to swell up with the effects of the
praise. 'And they can breed in litters of up to a hundred.'
'They grow quickly, of course?'
They reach full mature size within a day, providing they find
enough to eat.'
'And the breeders?'
'Can bear a litter each and every day, as you specified, master.'
Grottle threw back his head and let his deep rumbling laugh-
ter pour forth. Such a simple idea, he thought. When these rats
were released into the human city, they would consume all the
food within days.
All the stored crops from the harvest would be devoured. All the
food in shops would vanish underneath a furry avalanche of
hunger. They would eat and breed and eat and breed unstoppably.
And when no other food was available, they would eat the humans
and their animals. And when all other foodstocks were exhausted
they would consume each other. Or die.
Their lifespan was measured only in days. But before that hap-
pened, the humans would starve or flee from their city and the
triumph would belong to Clan Moulder. Word would soon reach
the Council of Thirteen and a suitable reward would be found for
Izak Grottle.
'We are ready to begin?'
'Yes master, We have the captured grain barge almost ready. The
conversion will be done in days. We will ship the specimens to where
it is hidden. It can begin its journey any time you wish, after that.'
'Perfect. Perfect.' The human warehouses were near the docks. All
they would have to do would be to take the boat into the harbour
and open the cages. A few disposable house troops could see to that
easily enough. Perhaps some rat-ogres just to be on the safe side.
'Do so as soon as preparations are complete.'
'Of course, master.'
'You say you have thousands more of these?' Grottle said, reach-
ing into the cage to stroke the sleek fat rat.
'Yes, master. Why?'
'Because I'm feeling a little peckish.' With that, Izak Grottle
grasped the somnolent rat and stuffed it, still living, into his sali-
vating mouth. It was still struggling futilely as it went down his
throat. It tasted good, thought Grottle.
Just like victory.
Felix walked through the swing doors of the Blind Pig and every
head in the place turned to look at him. At first, he wondered what
for, but when Katka, one of the serving girls, came to take his order,
he realised it was because no one recognised him. He smiled at her,
and was rewarded with a look of confusion until she saw who he
was.
'Why, Felix, I would never have guessed it was you. Did the
countess give you some new clothes?'
'Something like that,' he murmured as he raced up the stairs to
get to his room and change clothes. He was grateful to discover that
the package containing his old garments had come from the tailor's
shop.
Thank Sigmar, he thought. It wouldn't do to go brawling in this
fine suit. Then it dawned on him that simple possession of this new
finery was changing him. This morning he would never even have
given a thought to such matters. Probably because he didn't have to.
And what was he going to do with the pouch full of gold that Otto
had given him? To his brother, it probably seemed like little enough
money, but it was more than Felix could earn in a whole season of
working at the Blind Pig. Gently he pried up a loose floorboard and
dropped it into place there.
As he changed for work, he considered his encounter with Herr
Ostwald. It seemed that, at long last, the authorities were taking the
skaven threat seriously. At the same time, Ostwald appeared to have
made some very strange assumptions about Felix. He seemed to
assume that Felix was far cleverer and more involved with all of this
than he actually was. He guessed that Ostwald was simply project-
ing his own reasoning and perceptions onto what he knew of Felix.
Well, as long as he asked no questions about the death of Fritz von
Halstadt and the burning of the college, Felix was not going to dis-
appoint him. The fact that Ostwald had deduced a vast and
well-organised skaven conspiracy from several random acts that
Felix and the Slayer had perpetrated themselves might have been
amusing - except for one thing.
It was quite evident that there was indeed a vast and well-
organised skaven conspiracy. Even though he himself had killed
von Halstadt, there had been powerful rat-men present. Clan
Eshin assassins had nearly burned down the Blind Pig, and mon-
sters had been sighted just before the blaze which destroyed
much of the Poor Quarter. Even though he and Gotrek had inter-
rupted them, the warlocks of Skryre had been robbing the college.
Even though they had stopped the plague monks' ritual, the
skaven had managed to infiltrate the Gardens of Morr and the
plague was still spreading through the city like wildfire.
Hastily Felix put the enchanted pomander around his neck and
breathed deeply of the herbs. Ostwald had made no secret of the
fact that rat-men patrols had been sighted in the sewers and other
areas around the city; scouting parties, most likely.
Felix knew that one of the creatures Gotrek had seen in von Hal-
stadt's house was a grey seer, one of the rarest and most powerful of
all the rat-men magicians according to Leiber's book. A being, in
fact, usually only sighted when the skaven had great plans afoot.
A chill struck Felix, and it was not just caused by his tattered
clothes. He was forced to concede that, wrong though many of his
facts had been, Ostwald's basic conclusion was most likely correct.
The skaven planned something big here in Nuln. But what?
Grey Seer Thanquol took another pinch of warpstone snuff and
stroked his whiskers. Things were going well. He inspected the mass
of papers that lay before him and revelled in the messages they con-
tained. Almost ten thousand crack skaven troops would soon be in
position in the Underways beneath and around the city of Nuln.
So large a host had not been mustered since the time of the Great
Chaos Incursion. It was the largest force the Council of Thirteen had
dispatched to assault a human city since the time of the Great
Plague, when the entire human Empire had briefly lain under the
iron paw of skaven rule. And it was his to command. When he gave
the word, it would attack and in a frenzy of overwhelming ferocity
would overwhelm the pitiful humans above.
. For a brief instant the warpstone conjured up delightful visions
of destruction and death before Thanquol's reddened eyes. He
could picture the burning buildings, the humans hacked to pieces
or led off in great slave trains. He saw himself striding through the
ruins triumphant. The very thought made his tail stiffen.
Things were going very well indeed. Even Thanquol's enemies were
aiding his plans. That vile twosome Gurnisson and Jaeger had, guided
by Thanquol's brilliant insight, uncovered the lair of Vilebroth Null
and stopped his plans in their tracks. The abbot had returned from the
surface world alone, and no trace could be found of the Cauldron of
a Thousand Poxes. Null had spent the last few days limping around
the Underways muttering darkly about traitors. Thanquol tittered.
There was a certain poetic justice in it all: it had been the abbot's
intended treachery to the cause of Thanquol, and of course the entire
skaven nation, which had been the cause of his undoing.
It even appeared that the abbot might have done the invasion
force a favour, for Thanquol's agents on the surface reported some
dire disease was dropping the humans in their tracks. Of course,
potentially this meant that there would be less slaves once the con-
quest of Nuln had been effected, so perhaps then would be the time
to have the abbot punished. He could trump up the charges for the
council and let them deal with Null. Yes, it was true, Thanquol
thought: every cess-pit has a warpstone dropping in it, if only you
know how to look.
He studied the plans of the city before him. The various invasion
routes were well marked in red, blue and green warpstone ink. They
glowed in front of his eyes in a bright tangle and snarl of lines. Here
and there circles indicated breakout points where the army would
erupt onto the surface. The sheer labyrinthine complexity of it all filled
Thanquol's brain with pleasure. But the most pleasure came from his
contemplation of what would happen afterwards.
The city would be garrisoned against human attempts to retake it.
He would set up labour camps and make the captured human slaves
build a big ditch around the city. Then they could dam the river with
a great waterwheel which would provide power for the skaven's
machines and sweatshop factories. At some point they would erect a
huge, one hundred tail-length high statue of their conquerors, and it
seemed only fair to Thanquol that he should be the model for it, for
truly he would personify the skaven spirit of conquest to them. It
would be a glorious time, and the first of many victories that would
end with all the human lands permanently and utterly under skaven
rule.
He heard a not very discreet hacking cough outside the curtains
of his sanctum. A hoarse voice said: 'Greatest of generals, it is I, Lurk
Snitch-tongue, and I bring news most urgent.'
Disturbed from his reverie, Thanquol was inclined to be snap-
pish but Lurk had proven to be an invaluable lackey just recently,
and his sources of information had been excellent.
At this moment, he seemed a little ill, but Thanquol was sure that
would pass.
'Enter! Enter! Quick! Quick!'
'Yes! Yes! Swiftest of thinkers!'
'What is this urgent news?'
Lurk twitched his tail. It seemed obvious to Thanquol that the lit-
tle skaven had indeed come with interesting information, and
intended to savour his moment of triumph.
'I once blasted a lackey who kept me waiting a moment too long.
Stripped his flesh to the bones.'
'A moment, most patient of masters, while I gather my thoughts.
Some explanation is needed.'
'Then explain!'
'My birthkin Ruzlik serves Clan Moulder.'
'Indeed. And you think this information is worthy of the consid-
eration of a grey seer?'
'No! No, most perceptive of potentates! It's just that he has a
habit of gossiping when he has consumed fungal winebroth.'
'I see. And you, of course, are often sharing a flask or two with
him.'
Yes! Yes! Only this morning, in fact. He has told me that his mas-
ter, Izak Grottle, has a great plan afoot. One that will bring the
human city to its knees, and I hesitate to mention this, most under-
standing of skaven...'
'Hesitate no more. Quick! Quick!'
'He claims that Grottle's plan will bring him great glory, will
make him more famous even - his words, not mine, master - than
Grey Seer Thanquol.'
News of this treacherous claim came as no surprise to Thanquol.
It was ever the fate of great skaven to be undermined by jealous
lackeys. Doubtless Grottle sought to win esteem in the eyes of the
Council of Thirteen at the expense of Thanquol. Well, the grey seer
knew ways of dealing with that.
And what is this plan? Speak! Speak!'
'Alas, the fool could not say. He has merely heard the Moulders
chitter among themselves. He knows it has something to do with a
grain boat, for he himself led the raid to steal one from the humans.
He has no other hard details.'
Then go and find some. Now!'
'I may need to spend warptokens, most generous of masters.'
'What you need will be provided - within reason.'
'I go, master.' Lurk bowed and scraped as he retreated back
through the drapes.
Thanquol slumped down in his throne. Certain things were start-
ing to make sense. He had heard reports that one of the human
grain barges had been stolen. He had merely put it down to some
claw leaders exceeding their orders, and doing some private plun-
dering. Now it seemed that there was another ulterior and sinister
motive. Thanquol knew that his position would not be safe until he
found out what that was.
•I don't like you,' the man said, slumping down in his chair. 'I
really don't like you.'
'You're drunk,' Felix said. 'Go home!'
This is a tavern! My copper's as good as anyone's. I'll go home
when I please. I don't take orders from the likes of you.'
'Fair enough!' Felix said. 'Stay, then.'
'Don't try and smooth-talk me. I'll go if I like.'
Felix was getting tired of this. He had seen drunks like this
before: belligerent, full of self-pity, just looking for trouble. Unfor-
tunately, Felix was usually the candidate they chose for it. They
always picked him for an easy mark. He supposed they were all too
scared of Gotrek and the other bouncers. There was something
familiar about this one though. His coarse features and squat mus-
cular form looked familiar even in the shadowy gloom of this
corner of the tavern. He had been in several times over the past few
days since Felix had returned from his interview with Herr Ostwald.
'Elissa's my girl,' the drunk said. 'You just leave her alone.'
Oh, of course; it was the peasant lad who used to go out with
Elissa. He'd come back.
'Elissa can make up her own mind about who she wants to see.'
'No she can't. She's too sweet. Too easily led. Any city slicker with
a smooth tongue and a nice cloak can turn her head.'
Felix saw the part he was being cast for. He was the heartless
seducer leading the poor peasant girl astray.
'You've seen too many Detlef Sierck plays,' he said.
'What? What did you call me?'
'I didn't call you anything!'
'Yes, you did. I heard you.'
Felix saw the punch coming a league away. The man was drunk
and slow. He raised his hand to block it. His forearm stung from the
force of the blow. The man was strong.
'Bastard!' Hans shouted. 'I'll show you.'
He lashed out with a kick that caught Felix in the shin. Sharp
pain stabbed through Felix. By reflex, he lashed out with his right
hand and caught Hans under the jaw. It was quite possibly the best
punch he had ever thrown against a man who was in no state to do
anything about it. Hans dropped like a pole-axed ox.
The surrounding crowd applauded. Felix turned around to bow
ironically and he saw Elissa looking at him with a look of horror
in her eyes.
'Felix, you brute!' she said, moving past him to nurse Hans's
head in her lap.
'Oh Hans, what did that heathen do to you?'
Just looking at her, Felix could tell that any explanation of what
had happened would be useless.
'You have found out more of the Moulder's schemes, I hope?'
Thanquol allowed some of his anger and impatience to show in his
voice. Over the past few days Lurk had spent considerable sums
from the grey seer's treasure chest but still had not produced any
results. The little skaven gave a wheezing cough.
'Yes, yes, most perspicacious of masters. I have.'
'Good! Good! Tell me - quick, quick!'
'It's not good, most forgiving of masters.'
'What? What?' Thanquol leaned forward to glare down at the lit-
tle rat-man and watched him flinch. Few could endure the grey
seer's red-eyed stare when it suited him to use it.
'Regretfully, the wicked Moulders may already have implemented
their plan.'
Cold fury clutched Thanquol's heart. 'Go on!'
'My birthkin overheard the packmaster gloating. It seems a
grainship bearing Clan Moulder's secret weapon will arrive in the
man-city tonight. Once it arrives, the city will fall. He knows that
it has something to do with the city's grain supply but he's not
sure what. Clan Moulder are very technical and have their own
words for many things.'
'May the Horned Rat gnaw your birthkin's entrails! Is he hearing
any more?'
'Just that the barge has been painted black to conceal it from
human eyes and that it will arrive this very night. It may even have
done so already, most magnificent of masters.'
Thanquol's fur bristled. What could he do? He could mobilise
his troops and interfere but that would mean moving openly
against Clan Moulder and every instinct the grey seer possessed
rebelled against that. What if he summoned his troops, and they
failed to find the ship? Thanquol would be a laughing stock and
could not endure that. There was no time to waste. He knew that
this called for urgent and desperate measures.
Swiftly he reached for pen and parchment, and inscribed a hasty
message. 'Take this to the burrow where the dwarf and the man
Jaeger dwell. Make sure they get it - and quickly! Deliver it person-
ally!'
'P-p-personally, most revered of rat-men?'
'Personally.' Thanquol made it clear from his tone that he would
brook no argument. 'Go. Quick! Quick! Hurry-scurry! No time
there is to waste!'
'At once, mightiest of masters!'.
Vilebroth Null looked up with rheumy hate-filled eyes. He
coughed, but the sound of his coughing was lost amid the hacking
coughs of other skaven in the corridors. At last his patience had
been rewarded. His long hours of lying in wait near Thanquol's lair
had finally paid off. Somehow Vilebroth Null knew the grey seer
had been behind the failure of his carefully contrived plan. So
where was that little sneak Lurk Snitchtongue going at his hour? The
abbot knew there was only one way to find out.
'He started it!' Felix said, all too aware that he sounded like he was
whining. He looked around the room they shared, his eyes caught
by the package of clothes the tailor had delivered. He had still not
unwrapped them.
'So you say,' said Elissa inflexibly. 'I think you're just a bully. You
like hitting people like poor Hans.'
'Poor Hans put a bruise the size of a steak on my shin!' Felix said
angrily.
'Serves you right for hitting him,' Elissa said. Felix shook his head
in frustration. He was just about to get himself in deeper water
when suddenly the window crashed in. Felix threw himself over
Elissa to cover her as broken glass rained down. Fortunately, not too
much landed on them. Felix rolled to his feet and scanned the
chamber in the lantern light. Something dark and bulky lay on the
floor.
Swiftly he drew his sword and prodded it. Nothing happened.
'What is it?' Elissa said, getting to her feet fearfully and pulling
her nightgown tight around herself.
'Don't know,' Felix said, bending over to inspect it more closely.
As he did so he recognised the shape, and he thought he recognised
the thing wrapped round it. 'It's a brick, and it's wrapped in paper.'
'What? It'll be young Count Sternhelm again. He and his cronies
are always breaking windows when they get drunk!'
'I don't think so,' Felix said, gingerly unwrapping the paper. It
was the same thick coarse parchment all the other skaven messages
had come on. He unfolded it and read:
Frends - the Black Ship brings doom to yoor city! It comes
tonite and carries certin deth! It is a grane barge loded wiv bad!
Yoo must stop it! Go QUJK! QUIK! Yoo do not hav much time!
They wil destroy yoor grane!
Felix pulled himself to his feet and started to pull on his clothes.
'Run and get me some paper! I need to send a message to the
palace. Move! Quickly!'
The urgency in his voice compelled Elissa from the room with-
out asking any more questions.
Lurk rubbed his paws together and offered up a prayer of thanks to
the Horned Rat. His message was delivered and somehow he had
managed to avoid being chopped up by the dwarf's fearsome axe.
Mere minutes after he had lobbed the brick through what he had
ascertained was Jaeger's window he saw all the lights in the inn go
on, and shortly thereafter, the human and the dwarf raced from the
building bearing weapons and lighted lanterns.
A job well done, he told himself with satisfaction and rose to
go. He sniffed heavily, trying to clear his nose. He was not feeling
too well, and had been feeling less than well for days. He won-
dered if he was going down with the strange new disease that,
rumour had it, was going around the skaven camp... the disease
so strangely similar to the plague which was felling the humans.
Lurk fervently hoped not. He was still young and had many things
to accomplish. It would not be fair for him to pass away without
achieving them.
He almost fainted when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder and a
hideous bubbling voice whispered in his ear: 'You will tell me what
you have been doing! All of it! Quick! Quick!'
Even through the thick wad of snot that filled his nostrils, Lurk
recognised the oppressive stench of Vilebroth Null.
'What's the hurry, manling?' Gotrek rumbled. 'We don't even
know where we're going.'
'The river,' Felix said, feeling a strange sense of urgency. The note
had said they did not have much time, and their skaven informant
had never lied to them before. A ship must arrive by river.'
'I know, manling, but it's a big river. We can't cover it all.'
'It's a barge! There are very few places where a barge can tie up,
and it must follow navigable channels.'
Felix considered the possibilities. What certainty did he have that
this 'Black Ship' was going to tie up, rather than say, explode? None,
really; he was just hoping that this was the case. Then it came to
him. The big grain warehouses were down by the wharves and the
letter had mentioned grain. At least, he hoped it had.
'The granaries,' he muttered. The Northside docks are near the
granaries.
The Northside docks would seem to be the best bet then,' Gotrek
said, hefting his axe.
'Well, we need to start somewhere.' They jogged on. Felix hoped
fervently that the tavern boy had managed to deliver his note to
Count Ostwald.
Skitch cursed as the barge shifted off course again. It was not a ves-
sel the skaven were used to handling and the helmsman had had a
lot of trouble with the tricky currents on their way down-river.
Skitch hoped that they would arrive soon, for if they did not reach
the manburrow during the hours of darkness the whole plan would
be ruined. The barge painted black to be inconspicuous on this
moonless night would stick out like a human baby in a litter of
runts by day.
Well, he supposed the ship had been necessary. There was no
other way such a huge number of specimens could have been carried
through the Underways and released into the human city without
arousing suspicion. He knew the last thing that his master wanted
was for either Grey Seer Thanquol or the humans to have any inkling
of what was going on. It was a well-known faa that the plans of
Thanquol's rivals had a tendency to fail if he found out about them.
Skitch shuddered at the thought of what would happen if the
humans found out what was going on.
He shook his head and returned to inspecting his charges. They
scrabbled at the bars of their cages, hungry and desperate to be free.
'Soon! Soon!' he told them, feeling a certain kinship for these
short-lived vermin that his mighty intellect had created. He knew
they were flawed, just like he was. They would live only days.
The ship moved on through the night, coming ever closer to the
sleeping city.
The docks by night were not a reassuring place, Felix thought. Lights
spilled from many seedy taverns, and many red lights illumined the
alleys. Armed patrols of watchmen moved between the warehouses,
but were careful not to enter the areas where the sailors took their
pleasure. They were more intent in protecting their employers'
goods than stopping crime. Still, Felix was reassured to know that
there were armed men within call if things went horribly wrong.
He stood on the edge of the wharf and stared out into the river.
The Reik was wide at this point, perhaps a league across, and navi-
gable by ocean-going ships. Not that many of them came this far.
Most traders chose to drop their cargoes in Marienberg and have it
shipped upriver on barges.
From here he could see the running lights of both barges and the
small skiffs which carried folk across the river all hours. He assumed
that there would be many more craft out there than lights. Not at
all boats or their passengers wanted their businesses known. Felix
assumed that the Black Ship would be among their number. Only
instead of carrying a cargo of illegal goods it was carrying some
awful skaven weapon. Felix shuddered to contemplate what it
might be. The Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes and the weapons of
Clan Skryre had been terrible enough for him.
The wind blew cold and he drew his old tattered cloak tight
about his shoulders. What am I doing here, he wondered? I should
be at home back in the Pig, trying to patch things up with Elissa.
Or maybe not. Maybe that was what he was doing here, avoiding
Elissa.
He wondered where things were going with the girl, and he had
no real idea. It was just something he had drifted into, not some-
thing he ever imagined would have a future. He knew he did not
love Elissa the way he had loved Kirsten. Recently, he would not
even say they were friendly. He thought that for her, too, it was just
a passing thing, something that had happened. Maybe she would be
better off with her peasant boy. He shrugged and continued to peer
out into the darkness, and listen to the waves slopping gently
against the wooden supports of the wharf.
'Our scuttling little friends have picked a good night for it,'
Gotrek muttered, taking a swig from the flask of schnapps.
Felix studied the sky. He could see what the Slayer meant. The sky
was cloudy and the greater moon was a sliver. The lesser moon was
not visible at all.
'Smugglers' moon,' Felix said.
What?'
'My father used to call moons like this "smugglers' moons". I can
see why. Dark. The excisemen would find it hard to see you on a
night like this.'
'River patrols too,' Gotrek said. 'Not that humans can see worth
a snotling's fart at night anyway.'
'I suppose,' Felix said, wanting to contradict the Slayer, but know-
ing that he was right in this case.
'Aye, well just be glad a dwarf was here, manling. Even though he
has only one good eye.'
'Why?'
'Because there is your Black Ship! Look!'
Felix followed the dwarfs pointing finger and saw nothing.
'You've had too much schnapps,' he said.
'Your people have yet to brew a draft that could get a dwarf
drunk,' Gotrek said.
'Only legless...' Felix muttered.
'At least I'm not blind.'
'Just blind drunk.'
'I'm telling you there's a ship there.' Felix squinted into the gloom
and began to think the dwarf might be right. There was something
large out there, a shadowy presence moving erratically in the deep
water.
'I do believe you're right,' Felix said. 'I apologise most sincerely.'
'Save your breath,' the Slayer said. 'There's killing to be done.'
'Faster!' Felix said, standing on the prow of the skiff and keeping
his eyes fixed on the shadowy shape ahead.
'I'm going as fast as I can, master,' the boatman said, poling with
all the energy of an arthritic hedgehog. He was a hefty man, slow-
moving and ponderous.
A one-armed man could pole faster,' Gotrek said. 'In fact, I'll bet
if I chopped off one of your arms, you could move quicker.'
Suddenly the boatman found a surge of new strength from
somewhere and they picked up speed. Felix wasn't sure whether to
be glad or not. He was nervous about approaching the skaven ship
in this small craft. He wished they had summoned the watch but
the Slayer had become overcome with battle frenzy and insisted
there was no time to waste. He assured Felix that the commotion
they would soon be generating would attract the river patrols. Felix
did not doubt that he was right.
As they came closer, he could see that it was a black ship all
right, a huge grain barge painted all black and moving swiftly
downriver. He wondered why the skaven had done this. Cer-
tainly black made the ship inconspicuous at night, but during
the day the barge would be as noticeable as a hearse in a wed-
ding parade. Maybe it had travelled downriver unpainted and
they had disguised it this very evening. Maybe they had a con-
cealed base somewhere within a night's sailing upriver. Such a
base could be quite some distance away, for a barge could cover
a lot of water in one night, moving with the current as this one
was.
Felix dismissed all such speculation as pointless. He knew he was
only doing it to keep his mind occupied and distracted from fear of
the coming encounter.
What were they up to on the barge, he wondered? If they weren't
skaven then they were the worst sailors he had ever seen. The barge
now appeared to be drifting in a great half circle. He could hear a
faint muffled drumbeat and the creaking and dashing of oars. It
sounded like there was some difficulty in guiding the craft.
'It's them, all right,' Gotrek said. 'Skaven are even worse sailors
than I'd heard.'
Felix could hear the distant squeaking calls of the skaven now,
and knew the Slayer was correct. Unfortunately, the boatman had
heard him too.
'Did you say "skaven"?' he asked, superstition and fear engraved
across his fat, sweat-sheened face.
'No,' Felix said.
'Yes,' Gotrek said.
'I'm not going anywhere near a barge if there are Chaos-wor-
shipping monsters on board!' the boatman declared.
'My friend was only joking,' Felix said.
'No I wasn't,' Gotrek said.
The boatman stopped poling. Gotrek glared at him.
'I hate boats almost as much as I hate trees,' he said. 'And I hate
trees almost as much as I hate elves. And what I particularly hate are
people who keep me on boats longer than I have to be on them,
when there are monsters to slay and fighting to be done.'
The boatman had become very pale and very still, and Felix was
almost sure that he could hear his teeth chatter.
Gotrek continued to rant: 'You will pole this boat till we reach
that rat-man barge or I will rip off your leg and beat you to death
with it. Do I make myself clear?'
Felix had to concede that the sheer amount of menace the Slayer
managed to get into his voice was impressive. The boatmen cer-
tainly thought so.
'Perfectly,' he said, and began poling with redoubled speed.
As they approached the black barge, Felix saw a new problem. Their
skiff was low in the water but the barge had high sides. On level
ground, it would have been a simple climb, but on two moving ves-
sels bobbing on water it was an entirely different proposition. He
mentioned this to Gotrek. 'Don't worry,' the Slayer said. 'I have a
plan.'
'Now I am worried,' Felix muttered.
'What was that, manling?' The Slayer looked close to berserk rage.
'Nothing,' Felix said.
'Just grab that lantern and be ready to move when I tell you.'
The skiff drifted into contact with the ship. As it did so, Gotrek
smashed his axe into the barge's side. It bit deep and held there and
the Slayer used it to pull himself up until he reached a porthole.
Very stealthy,' Felix said sourly. 'Why not give a hearty shout of
welcome while you're at it.'
Another smashing stroke saw Gotrek over the ship's side. He
stood there for a moment and then lowered the axe, blade first.
'Grab hold,' he roared. Felix leapt up and grabbed hold of the axe
shaft with his right hand, while holding the lantern in the other.
Gotrek raised the axe one-handed, lifting it up, apparently effort-
lessly, despite Felix's weight and the uncomfortable angle. He
swung the axe inwards over the ship's side and brought Felix with
it. Felix dropped to the deck, amazed by the awesome strength the
dwarf had just displayed.
'Looks like we're expected,' he said, nodding at the mass of
skaven swarming up onto the deck.
'Good,' Gotrek said. 'I need a bit of exercise'
What was that, Skitch wondered? He had heard an almighty crash
and the sound of wood splintering. Had those buffoons managed
to crash the barge onto a sandbar again? He would not have put it
past them. They had claimed to be experienced sailors and that
crewing a human ship would be no problem. So far that had not
proved the case.
If they jeopardised this mission, Izak Grottle would tear them all
limb from limb and devour their entrails before their dying eyes,
but such thoughts brought Skitch no consolation. He knew he
would be the first course at the packmaster's punishment feast.
When he heard the crew's squeaks of alarm, Skitch knew it was
even worse than running aground. They had been discovered by
a human patrol. He cursed the bad luck which had enabled the
humans to discover them. It must have been a million-to-one
chance. Now he wished he had brought some rat-ogres after all.
He had not done so, for fear that their roars and bellows would
give away the ship's position, but that did not seem to matter
now.
Part of him wanted to squirt the musk of fear, but then again it
was his responsibility to see to his charges. He raced from the cabin
into the hold. All around him, massive rats thrashed in their cages,
desperate to get free and to eat. Seeing the look of feral hunger in
their eyes, Skitch was glad that he had doused himself in oil of
swamptoad, a substance that he knew his creations found repellent.
Hearing the sounds of terrible carnage from above, Skitch swiftly
began to throw open the cages. The rats swarmed hungrily up the
gangplanks, moving towards their living, breathing food.
Felix lashed out with the lantern. Its flame flared bright as it
rushed through the air. The dazzled skaven before him leapt back,
momentarily blinded. Felix took advantage of its confusion to stab
it through the throat with his sword.
The deck was already slippery underfoot with blood and brains.
The Slayer had left an awful trail of destruction behind him. His axe
had reduced a dozen skaven to limbless corpses. The others were
fleeing backwards or jumping over the side of the barge to avoid
him. Felix moved along behind, killing those who sought to out-
flank the dwarf and putting the dying out of their misery.
His heart beat loudly within his chest. His sword's hilt felt sweaty
in his grip but he was not as afraid as he usually was in mortal com-
bat. Compared to some of the fights he had been in, this one was
relatively easy. Suspiciously so, in fact, considering there was sup-
posed to be some terrible skaven weapon on board this vessel.
Not that the relative ease of the fight would make much differ-
ence, he told himself, springing aside to duck a knife cast by one of
the skaven sailors, and lunging forward to take another rat-man
through the heart. All it would take would be one lucky blow, and
he would be just as dead as if a rat-ogre had torn him into little
pieces.
Concentrate, he ordered himself - and then stopped in horror as
the tide of furry forms started swarming up from the hold.
Skitch snuck up the stairway and peered out at a scene of terrible
violence. A monstrous squat dwarf wielding a flailing great axe had
killed half the crew and seemed intent on massacring the other half.
In this he was assisted by a tall, blond-furred human who held a
lantern in one hand and a wicked-looking blade in the other. All
around, the killer rats gnawed at the bodies of dead and dying
skaven.
Skitch froze on the spot and squirted the musk of fear. His paws
locked on the last cage, in which frantic rats struggled to get away
from the stink of the oil on his fur. Skitch recognised the pair who
had invaded the ship. They had become something of a dark leg-
end amongst the skaven besieging Nuln. This was the fearsome
pair whom even the gutter runners had failed to slay, who had
routed the warlocks of Skryre, whom it was said even Grey Seer
Thanquol feared to meet again. They were formidable killers of
skaven - and they were here, on this very barge!
Skitch was no warrior and he knew he could be of no aid to the
skaven in the battle above. It was possible that even the killer rats
would fail to overcome this seemingly invincible twosome. It was
plainly his duty, then, to escape, carrying the last of the surviving
rats, to preserve them for the future when they might be used again.
So thinking, he held the cage high above his head and leapt into
the night-black waters.
Felix watched as more and more of the huge rats poured from the
hold. There was a hunger and madness in their eyes which fright-
ened him, and he wondered if these could be the skaven secret
weapon. One large fierce brute threw itself at him. He felt the hor-
rid scurry of its paws on his leg. He lashed out, sending the beast
flying and stamped down, feeling the spine of another crack
beneath the heel of his boot.
He looked around at Gotrek. The Slayer beheaded another of the
skaven crew, sending a great fountain of black blood belching into
the air. Before the skaven corpse hit the ground, more and more rats
had swarmed over it.
Something dropped onto Felix from above. He felt paws scrab-
bling in his hair, and small sharp teeth nipping his ear. A foul
animal stench filled his nostrils. He dropped the lantern and
reached up, feeling muscles squirm beneath fur as he plucked the
rat free. Fangs nipped at his fingers as he threw the thing over the
side and into the river.
More and more rats dropped from above or pounced from the
deck. He felt like he was in the centre of a swirling storm of fur.
Gotrek stamped and hacked and kicked but he was in the same
position. The rats were too numerous and too fierce to overcome. If
they stayed they would die a horrible death by a thousand bites.
'Not a death for a Slayer, I would say!' Felix shouted.
'Torch this blasted floating rats' nest!'
'What?'
'Torch it and let's begone!'
Felix looked around and saw the lantern. He picked it up and
threw it with all his force onto the deck. Burning oil spilled every-
where. Felix had often heard his father say what a danger fire was on
a ship. They were, after all, built of wood and sealed with inflam-
mable pitch. Felix had never thought he would be grateful for that
fact, but he certainly was now. Flames started to flicker and dance
all around him.
The smell of burning fur and flesh reached his nostrils. Squeak-
ing rats scurried everywhere, their fur smouldering and blazing as
they tried to escape the hot flames. Some leapt overboard and
plummeted into the water like small living meteors. Others contin-
ued their attack with redoubled fury, as if determined to drag
something else down in death with him.
Felix decided that this was their cue to depart.
Time to go!' he shouted. A backwash of heat blazed towards
him, singeing his hair and eyebrows.
'Aye, manling, I think you are right.'
Felix sheathed his sword, turned and vaulted over the side. He
tumbled into the water, rats falling all around him. After the heat
of the burning ship it was almost a relief to feel the shock of cold
dark water closing over his head. He kicked out and up and his
head broke the surface.
He could see that there were boats all around, come to look at
the fire. Fighting the weight of his scabbard, he struck out for the
nearest vessel.
Sopping wet, Felix sat glumly on the wharf and kept his eyes
peeled. So far there was no sign of the Slayer. He had not seen
Gotrek since he plunged into the water. He wondered if the dwarf
could swim. Even if he could, was it not possible that he had
drowned trying to hold on to his precious axe? It would not exactly
have been the glorious death he craved.
His clothes were wet and his teeth were starting to chatter but
still he sat, wishing that he had some of the schnapps Gotrek had
been swigging earlier. Felix wondered about the skaven weapon that
was meant to have been on board the Black Ship. He knew now that
he would never find out what it was. The barge was a burned-out
hulk resting on the bottom of the river. The boatmen who had
picked him up had held their position in mid-river and watched it
burn, before accepting a handful of silver in payment for carrying
Felix to the shore.
There was a wet, slapping sound nearby Felix looked warily to his
right. One of the huge, hungry rats had made it off the ship then. It
clambered up the side of the ladder from the landing stage, shook
its fur dry like it was a dog and trotted off up the wharf. Felix
watched it go.
Briefly Felix considered finding the boatmen again and going
out to search the river for the Slayer. He knew it would be a futile
effort; the Reik was too wide and the current too strong. If the
Slayer had drowned, doubtless his corpse would eventually be
recovered and put on display at the Old Bridge, waiting with all
the others the river had taken for someone to come and claim it.
Felix could check there tomorrow.
He stood up wearily from the mooring post on which he sat and
prepared for the long trudge home. As he did so, he caught sight of
a familiar figure, berating an equally familiar boatman who was
poling towards the landing stage. Felix waved a welcome.
'Current carried me down river,' Gotrek called, hauling himself
up onto the wharf. 'Ran into our old friend here. Took most of the
night to get back.'
'Going against the current,' the weary boatman said. He looked
as tired as any man Felix had ever seen, and deeply scared too. Felix
could guess the nature of the threats which Gotrek had used to
motivate him.
'Well,' he said, 'let's get back to the Pig and have some beer. I
think we've earned it.'
'Forgive me if I don't join you,' the boatman said. 'And... and
there's the small matter of my fee.'
Cold, wet and bedraggled, Skitch finally scuttled into the Under-
ways. It had been a truly dreadful night. He had swum through the
chilly waters carrying the last cage of rats. After that, he had scuttled
along the riverbanks until he found a sewer outflow, and then he
had spent the rest of the night wandering through the tunnels until
he had found the familiar scent of skaven. Dodging human patrols
in the dark, the trail had finally led him here.
He was proud of himself. He had managed a long and difficult
trek. He had lost his bifocals and could barely see but he had made
it, and he had managed to preserve a cage full of his precious spec-
imens. Better yet, in the cage were several pregnant females so he
would easily be able to start all over again. The rats were healthy
too. Even now they were showing signs of agitation. Skitch realised
it was because they could smell food. He was close to the storage
chambers where the supplies for the great invasion force were kept.
Now, he thought, all he needed was a cover story to tell the sen-
tries to explain his business. Easy enough; he would just say that he
was bringing food for Izak Grottle. Anybody who knew the pack-
master would believe that.
The thought made him titter. He was still tittering when his near-
blind eyes failed to pick out the stone in front of his feet and he
tripped, sprawling clumsily into the dirt. The cage rolled free from
his grip. The battered lock clicked and it sprang open. The killer rats
bounded forth and raced off in the direction of the skaven stores.
Skitch groaned. He knew what the consequences of that were
going to be. Soon it would not be just Izak Grottle who was hungry.
-
'The days grew darker. Fear and hunger were con-
stant companions. The great skaven plot drew to
its inevitable conclusion, and it seemed to be our lot to
be drawn into it. And yet, along with terror and horror,
there was hope and heroism. As well as loss there was
honour. The hour of utmost danger arrived and I pride
myself that my companion and I were not found want-
ing...'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
THE BATTLE
FOR NULN
Thanquol sat brooding on his great throne. Around him was
marked a pentacle, inscribed with the head of the Horned Rat and
surrounded by a double circle of the most potent protective sym-
bols. He had invoked all of the great defensive spells he knew to
shield him from the dire forces gnawing at his destiny. These were
runes sovereign against curses, diseases, ill-luck and all manner of
death-bringing spells. They numbered among the most powerful
wards the grey seer had learned in a long career pursuing the Darker
Mysteries. It was a measure of how bad the situation had become
that Thanquol thought it necessary to expend so much of his care-
fully hoarded mystical power to invoke them all.
Thanquol lowered his great horned head into his hands and beat
a tattoo on his temples with his claws. He was worried. Things were
not going according to plan. Events were starting to slip beyond his
control, he could sense it. His highly trained grey seer's intuition
could feel forces at work here that were sending matters spiralling
beyond the ability of any skaven, no matter how clever, to predict.
He was not quite sure how it had all happened. At first every-
thing had gone so well. His agents reported the destruction of the
Black Ship and he knew that once more his unwitting pawns,
Jaeger and Gurnisson, had done his work for him. Mere days later,
the Council of Thirteen had authorised an increase in size of his
invasion force. It looked like utter crushing victory over the
humans was within his grasp. But then...
But then the accursed plague had started to spread among his
own forces. Soon the Underways were full to bursting with sick and
dying skaven warriors. As fast as the bodies could be burned, dozens
more followed. Even the skaven slaves manning the funeral ovens
were falling sick. The symptoms - a hacking snuffling cough, an evil
pus filling the lungs and finally a sudden onset of fatal spasms -
were remarkably similar to the disease striking down the humans on
the surface. Perhaps it was the same plague. It would not be the first
time a contagion had made the leap between the two races.
As if the plague were not bad enough, another menace had
arisen. The corridors now swarmed with large, fierce, hungry rats.
They were everywhere, devouring the corpses, eating the food sup-
plies, fighting over scraps, defecating and urinating everywhere,
helping spread the cursed disease - and at the same time starving
the army. Even now some of them lurked, beady-eyed, in the corner
of his chamber, avoiding his pentagram but gnawing the furnish-
ings. He could hear some of them moving beneath his throne. They
must have been there when he cast his spells. Now they were
trapped inside with him.
It would not have been nearly so bad if the offending creatures
had not been rats. It was almost a sign that the Horned Rat had
turned his snout away from the great invasion force, and withdrawn
his blessing from the army. Certainly some of the more supersti-
tious warriors were starting to mutter such things, and none of
Thanquol's pointed speeches and sermons had reassured them.
It did no good for him to point out that the humans were suf-
fering just as much, if not more, from these twin catastrophes: their
granaries were empty, their food supplies consumed by the ver-
minous host. The skaven warriors simply did not believe him. They
did not have access to Thanquol's extensive spy network on the sur-
face. They saw only that they themselves were starving and that their
comrades were falling ill, and that there was a good chance that
they in turn would be the next to be smitten by the plague. Morale
had suffered, and no one knew better than Thanquol that morale
was always a chancy thing at best for a skaven army.
He had done his utmost to hunt down those shirkers who mut-
tered disloyal and treacherous remarks. He had assigned elite units
of stormvermin to execute deserters on the spot. He had blasted sev-
eral traitors himself with his most spectacular and destructive spells
- but it had all been to no avail. The rot had set in. The army was
slowly starting to fall to pieces. And there did not seem to be any-
thing he could do about it.
Thanquol kicked one of the rats from under his feet, where it was
gnawing at the bones of the last messenger who had brought him
bad news. It flew through the air and impacted on the curtain of
spells surrounding the pentagram. Sparks flickered, smoke belched
and the rat gave an eerie keening cry as it died. The air was full of
the smell of burned fur and scorched flesh as the creature fried in its
own body fat. Thanquol's whiskers twitched in appreciation and he
gave a brief savage smirk of satisfaction before returning to his
brooding.
Since word of the armies' misfortune had filtered back to Skaven-
blight, no more reinforcements had arrived. It was not quite the
overwhelming mass of skaven warriors he had hoped for, but it
would be enough, if Thanquol used all his resources of cunning and
far-sighted planning. Something would have to be done to save the
situation, and soon, while there was still an army left that was capa-
ble of fighting. He did not doubt that he still had enough troops at
his command to overwhelm the human city if they attacked swiftly
and savagely and with the advantage of surprise. Even if the army
then dissolved, he would have achieved his goal. Nuln would be
conquered and Thanquol could report success to the Council of
Thirteen. It would then be up to his masters to rush garrison troops
here to hold the city. If they did not get here in time that would not
be Thanquol's fault.
The more Thanquol thought of it, the more this plan made sense.
He could still achieve his assigned mission. He could still grasp his
share of glory. He could then shift the blame for anything that hap-
pened afterwards to where it belonged - upon his incompetent
underlings, and those traitors to the skaven cause who deserted the
army just before its hour of triumph.
He reviewed the forces under his control. He still had close to
five thousand almost-healthy warriors drawn mostly from Clan
Skab. He still had several teams of gutter runners and a cadre of
Clan Eshin assassins. The various foolish adventures undertaken by
their treacherous leaders had left him with only a token force from
Clan Skryre and Clan Pestilens. Izak Grottle and his force of rat-
ogres, though, were still a formidable presence.
He knew that a simple frontal assault was not necessarily the best
of plans under the circumstances. What he needed was a bold stroke
that would lead to certain and overwhelming victory. And he
believed he knew how that could be achieved.
Soon, his spies told him, the breeder the humans called the Elec-
tor Countess would be giving a masked ball, in a futile effort to
distract her court from their troubles. If the palace could be taken
with all the human nobles inside, then the human army in Nuln
would be left leaderless and easy prey to the skaven assault. If the
raid could be timed so that the two attacks were combined, so much
the better. On the night the skaven took the palace, the city would
also fall in blood and terror. Perhaps, with their chief breeder in
Thanquol's clutches, the humans could even be induced to surren-
der.
It would have to be done soon, if he was to have any hope of suc-
cess, but at least here was a chance that he could snatch victory from
the slavering jaws of defeat.
Before that, though, he had another slight problem. He would
have to negate the protective spells surrounding him so he could
leave his chamber and begin giving orders. With a long-suffering
sigh, Grey Seer Thanquol began the incantations that would let him
out from inside his own pentagram.
Felix Jaeger kicked a huge fat rat from underfoot, sending it flying
through the air to land in a midden heap. It turned and immedi-
ately began to devour the foulness in which it lay. Felix watched in
hopeless disgust and despair.
The rats were everywhere, eating anything that was edible and a
lot that was not. There were thousands of them, possibly millions.
At times, whole streets seemed to be nothing but a seething sea of
vermin. His employer, Heinz, had heard tales that they had taken to
devouring babies in cribs and small children who got too close to
them. Huge packs of the vile beasts flowed across the city streets,
and the cats and dogs were too terrified to stop them.
The only good thing was that the rats appeared to be mysteri-
ously short-lived. It looked like they aged months within a few days.
But when they died, the rats' corpses lay strewn like some hideous
furry carpet across the cobbles. It was not natural. In fact, the whole
thing stank of skaven sorcery and Felix wondered if there was some
evil purpose to it.
The city of Nuln appeared to be under a curse, Felix thought. The
air smelled of sickness and disease, and human flesh burned on
great pyres in the square outside the Temple of Morr. Whole tene-
ment buildings had been boarded up, and turned into tombs. Felix
shuddered when he thought of the mouldering corpses of the dead
within them. Even worse, though, were the thoughts of those who
had been entrapped there alive, victims of the plague who no one
wanted to help. There were hideous rumours circulating of people
recovering from the plague, only to die of starvation There were
worse tales of cannibalism and folk feasting on flesh from the
corpses of their family and friends. It was a horrifying thought. And
it made Felix think that Sigmar and Ulric had turned their gaze from
this city.
Ahead of him he heard the rumble of wheels and the tolling of
a bell. He stepped aside to let the plague cart pass. The driver was
garbed all in black and his face was hidden by a skull mask and a
great peaked cowl. On the back of the cart, an acolyte of Morr
swung a censer of incense, presumably to protect him from the
plague. It was like watching Death himself ride through the
doomed city, accompanied by his servants. Felix could see the rot-
ting corpses piled high on the backboard of the vehicle. The
bodies were naked, already stripped of their valuables by their
families or bold scavengers. Rats gnawed at the bodies. As Felix
watched he saw one tear out an eyeball, and devour it whole.
The plague carts moved constantly through the streets, bells
tolling to announce their presence, summoning those still strong
and healthy to dispose of the bodies of those who were not. But not
even the plague carts were safe. If they stopped for a moment, the
rats were upon them, fighting each other to feast upon the corpses.
Felix's belly grumbled, and he pulled his belt a notch tighter. He
hoped the others were having more luck in their foraging for food
than he was. He had found nothing to eat on sale that had not been
contaminated by rat droppings, and even that was being sold for ten
times its normal price. Some citizens were getting rich from the
ruination of this mighty city. There were always those, he thought,
who could find profit in even the most dire of situations.
He wished that Gotrek would give up his mad desire to remain
in the city. He had already considered slipping away himself, join-
ing those hosts of the poor and the lowly who had snatched up
their few possessions and departed. He had not done so for several
reasons. The first and best of them was that he would not desert his
friends. The second was a desire to see this thing through to its end.
He suspected that soon the dire events would reach their climax,
and at least part of him wanted to find out what would happen.
The final reason was simple. He had heard tales that the local
nobles had quarantined the city, and that archers were shooting
those who tried to depart by the public highways. Many of the
barges which had set sail from the docks in the past two desperate
weeks had returned, reporting Imperial naval ships on the river
sinking any vessel which tried to pass them.
Perhaps a small band moving by night could slip through, but
Felix did not want to try it without Gotrek. The lawless lands
around the city would be even more dangerous now with all the
local soldiers and road wardens enforcing the quarantine and bands
of armed men robbing any refugees.
Law and order had already broken down in parts of the city
inside the walls. By night gangs of looters roamed the streets
searching for food, helping themselves to anything that wasn't
guarded by armed men. Only two nights ago a mob had broken
into the city granary, despite the presence of several hundred sol-
diers. They had broken down the gates only to discover that the
place was empty, filled only with the skeletons of the rats which
had gorged themselves on the grain and then died.
A group of feral children was watching him with hungry eyes.
One of them was roasting a dead rat on a spit. Normally he would
have tossed them a coin out of pity but twice in the past few days
he had almost been assaulted by such gangs. They had only turned
back, discouraged, when he had drawn his sword and whipped it
through the air menacingly.
He remembered the words of Count Ostwald. The city was
indeed under siege, but it was a siege of a most horrifying type.
There were no siege towers. No weapons had been brought to bear
except hunger and disease. There was no enemy which could be
sought out and battled. Despair was the foe here, and there was no
sword with which it could be fought.
Ahead of him lay the Blind Pig. Outside it lolled several men-at-
arms, mercenaries who had billeted themselves in the inn because
they knew it and its owner, and stuck there now in a mass for their
own protection. Felix knew them all and they knew him, but even
so they watched him warily as he came closer. They were hard men
who had decided that since they could not outrun the plague, they
might as well be comfortable while they waited for it to strike them
down. The Elector Countess was offering double pay to those who
helped keep the peace by reinforcing her guards and the sadly
depleted city watch. These men were earning their extra pay.
'Any news?' one of them asked, a burly Kislevite giant known as
Big Boris. Felix shook his head.
'Any food?' asked the other, a sour-faced Bretonnian everyone
called Hungry Stephan.
Felix shook his head again and stepped past them into the inn.
Heinz sat at the table beside the fire, warming his hands. Gotrek sat
with him, glugging back an enormous stein of ale.
'Looks like it will be rat pie for supper again,' Heinz said. Felix
was not quite sure if he was making a joke. 'Young Felix has come
back empty handed.'
'At least you still have beer,' Felix said.
'If it were dwarf ale we could live on it and nothing else,' Gotrek
said. 'Many a campaign I've fought with nothing in my belly save
half a barrel of Bugman's.'
'Unfortunately, it's not Bugman's,' Felix said dryly. Since the food
shortages began, the dwarf had taken to reminiscing constantly and
in a most annoying manner about the nutrient powers of dwarf ale.
'More skaven have been seen,' Heinz said. The city guard clashed
with them in the Middenplatz last night. They seemed to be forag-
ing for food as well, or so the guard claimed.'
'Most likely want to make sure we're starving,' Felix said sourly.
'Whatever's going to happen is going to happen soon,' Gotrek
said. 'There's something in the air. I can smell it.'
'It's beer you smell,' Felix said.
'I hear Countess Emmanuelle is throwing a big fancy dress ball,'
Heinz said with a grin. 'Maybe you'll be invited.'
'Somehow I doubt it,' Felix said. He had not heard from the
palace since he had been summoned by Ostwald two weeks ago to
explain the burning of the Black Ship. Of course, since then, all those
mansions on the hill had become fortified camps, as the rich and the
blue-blooded isolated themselves in an effort to escape the plague.
Rumour had it that any commoner even setting foot on those cob-
bled streets was shot on sight.
Typical of your bloody human nobles,' Gotrek said and belched.
The city is going to the dogs and what do they do? Throw a bloody
party!'
'Maybe we should do the same,' Heinz said. There are worse
ways to go!'
'Anybody seen Elissa?' Felix asked, wanting to change the gloomy
direction this conversation was taking.
'She left earlier, went for a walk with that peasant lad... Hans, is
it?'
Suddenly Felix wished he hadn't asked.
Lurk Snitchtongue glanced around the gloomy chamber and con-
trolled the urge to squirt the musk of fear. It took a mighty effort for
he could never in all his life recall being cornered by three such fear-
some skaven. He stifled a cough and fought to hold back a sneeze
in case either would draw attention to him, but it was no use. Those
three sets of malevolent eyes were drawn to his shivering form like
iron filings to a magnet. Vilebroth Null, Izak Grottle and Heskit
One Eye all stared at him as if he were a tasty morsel. Particularly
Izak Grottle.
Lurk wished his body would stop aching. He wished his paws
would stop sweating. He wished the pain that threatened to split
his skull would go away. He knew that they would not. He knew
that he had the plague and he knew that he was going to die -
unless Vilebroth Null did as he had promised and interceded for
him with the Horned Rat.
Truly, Lurk thought, he was caught with his tail between the
cleaver and the chopping block. The only way he could save his life
was by doing what the terrifying plague monk leader said. Unfortu-
nately, Vilebroth Null wanted him to betray his master, Grey Seer
Thanquol. Lurk shuddered to think of the consequences should
that formidable sorcerer find out what had happened. The wrath of
Thanquol was not something any sane skaven cared to face.
The three skaven put their heads together once more and started to
whisper. Lurk would have given anything to know what they were talk-
ing about. On second thoughts, considering they were probably
discussing his fate, he might conceivably be able to live without the
knowledge. Lurk cursed his own weakness. He had known he was in
trouble when he saw who had been waiting in the chamber that Null
had led him to. He knew then, all too well, that the weeks of negotia-
tions the abbot had alluded to had paid off, and two of the most
powerful factions of skavendom were arrayed alongside Clan Pestilens.
In that secret chamber, far from eavesdroppers and shielded by
Null's potent sorcery, Heskit One Eye and Izak Grottle had been
waiting. As soon as he saw them, Lurk had known the game was up.
Under Null's prodding he had told them everything. He had
explained that Thanquol had somehow learned of their schemes
(leaving out only his own part in their discovery) and he had told
them, too, of the messages Thanquol had sent to their arch ene-
mies, the human Jaeger and the dwarf Gurnisson. It went without
saying that these lordly skaven were outraged by what they saw as
the grey seer's despicable treachery.
He had sensed their murderous rage in the air and done every-
thing in his power to avoid being the focus of it. He had heard all
about the gory details of Clan Skryre's Excruciation Engines, and
many times he had shuddered at the tale of how Grottle liked to
consume his enemies' entrails before their very eyes while they still
lived.
In order to avoid this fate, he had wracked his mind for every lit-
tle detail he could remember, to convince them that he was
co-operating thoroughly. The prospect of immediate painful death
overcame any reluctance caused by the thought of what Grey Seer
Thanquol might do to him in the future. And, in one small, cun-
ning and deeply hidden part of Lurk's mind, it occurred to him that
if these three could be made angry enough to take vengeance on
Grey Seer Thanquol, then Thanquol would be too dead to take any
revenge on him in turn.
He was pretty sure now that he had succeeded. Heskit One Eye
had gnawed his own tail in rage as Lurk explained how the grey seer
had sent explicit details to their enemies concerning Clan Skryre's
plan to invade the College of Engineering. He had even fabricated a
few convincing details of how the grey seer had laughed and
gloated about how his stupid enemies would soon fall into his trap.
Well, thought Lurk, Thanquol most likely had.
Izak Grottle had become so outraged he even spluttered out a
mouthful of food when Lurk explained how Thanquol had told
him that the fat fool would never suspect his idiotic plan to smug-
gle a secret weapon into the city on a converted barge would be
betrayed by Thanquol's cunning.
Vilebroth Null called down the curse of the Horned Rat on his
rival when Lurk told him how Thanquol, jealous of the favour their
god had shown the abbot, decided to remove a dangerous rival by
revealing the whereabouts of his secret lair in the human cemetery
to his two most trusty agents on the surface, Gurnisson and laeger.
'Are you certain the grey seer is in league with those two?' Grot-
tie demanded. 'Absolutely, definitely certain?'
'Of course, mightiest of Moulders. He forced me, on pain of
hideous death, to deliver notes to them and they always responded
to his instructions, did they not? I can only conclude that either
they are in Grey Seer Thanquol's pay or-'
'Or what?' Vilebroth Null burbled.
'No. The thought is too hideous. No true skaven would stoop
to-'
'Stoop to what? To what?'
'Or he is in their pay!' Lurk said, amazed by his own powers of
invention. This set off another burst of outraged chittering.
'No! No! Impossible,' Heskit One Eye said. 'Thanquol is a grey
seer. He would never submit to taking orders from any but another
skaven. The thought is ludicrous.'
'And yet...' Vilebroth Null said.
And yet? And yet?' Izak Grottle said.
'And yet it is indisputable that Grey Seer Thanquol had been in
touch with the surface dwellers, and had betrayed our plans to them!'
Null said. 'How else could they have got wind of our schemes? How
else could such magnificently cunning plans have failed?'
'Are you seriously suggesting that Grey Seer Thanquol is a traitor
to the skaven cause? Seriously?' Izak Grottle asked, showing his ter-
rifyingly huge fangs in a great snarl.
'It's possible,' Lurk dared to add.
All too possible, I fear,' Heskit One Eye said. 'It is the only expla-
nation for why the grey seer would interfere with our mighty
machinations, when all we were attempting to do was further the
skaven cause.'
And yet the human and the dwarf are his enemies too. By all
accounts they almost killed him in the lair of the human, von Hal-
stadt.'
And he sent the gutter runners against them,' Vilebroth Null
added. That was a true contract. Chang Squik still spits when he
thinks of his failure.'
What if Grey Seer Thanquol is cunning enough to use his enemies
against us?' Heskit One Eye said excitedly. 'He pits them against us. He
cannot lose! He thwarts a rival or we kill his sworn enemies for him.'
There was a moment of silence in the chamber, and Lurk knew that
whatever else his enemies thought of the grey seer, they had suddenly
gained enormous respect for his cunning. On consideration, he had
to admit that he had too. Whatever flaws he might possess, it was hard
to dispute that Grey Seer Thanquol was possessed of all the qualities
of a truly great skaven.
'Even so, even allowing that Grey Seer Thanquol possesses devilish
cunning, he has still betrayed us to the enemy! That is beyond dispute.
He has revealed our hidden plans, and the hidden plans of our great
dans to the enemy,' Izak Grottle said. 'Grey Seer Thanquol is a traitor
and an enemy of all our peoples.'
'I agree,' Heskit said. 'A traitor he most certainly is. And more - he
is our personal enemy. He has acted against us all once and almost
caused our deaths. Perhaps he will be more successful with his next
attempt.'
All three of them shivered when they thought of the daemonically
clever intelligence which worked against them. Lurk could see the fear
written on their faces, and in the nervous twitching of their whiskers.
'I humbly suggest,' Null said, 'that it might be the will of the
Horned Rat that we remove Grey Seer Thanquol from his command
of the army, and send him to make his explanations to the Council of
Thirteen.'
'I heartily agree with your sentiments. Heartily!' Izak Grottle said.
'But how are we to accomplish this? The traitor remains in command
of almost five thousand Clan Skab warriors while our own forces are
but a shadow of what they once were.'
'Doubtless as the traitor planned,' Heskit said.
'Doubtless,' the other two agreed simultaneously.
There is always assassination,' Heskit suggested.
'Possibly! Possibly!' Grottle said. 'But who would take the chance
that the Eshin might be deluded enough to report the request for such
a thing to the traitor himself?'
'We could do it ourselves,' Vilebroth Null said.
'Grey Seer Thanquol, despite his known treachery, is a lamentably
powerful sorcerer,' Heskit One Eye said. 'We might fail and we might
die!'
All three shuddered and then, as one, all three pairs of eyes turned
on Lurk. He quivered to the soles of his paws, for he knew what they
were thinking.
'No! No!' he said.
'No?' Heskit One Eye said menacingly, reaching for the butt of
his pistol.
'No?' Izak Grottle rumbled hungrily, and licked his lips.
'No?' Vilebroth Null said, hawking a huge lump of green phlegm
onto the floor beside Lurk's feet where it bubbled corruptly.
'No! No! Most merciful of masters, I am but a lowly skaven. I
possess not your mighty intellects and awesome powers. Any of
you might expect to best Grey Seer Thanquol in combat or cun-
ning, but not I.'
Then why should we preserve your life?' Izak Grottle said silkily.
'Why? Speak! Quick! Quick! I am hungry.'
'Because... because...' Lurk floundered around frantically seek-
ing a path out of this hideous maze. He cursed the day he had ever
encountered Grey Seer Thanquol or bore his messages to the
human and the dwarf. Wait! That might be the answer. Perhaps in
the grey seer's own great example was the solution to his problem.
'Because... because there is a better way!'
'Is there?'
'Yes. Yes. One that holds fewer risks and is more certain!'
'You interest me, Lurk Snitchtongue,' Izak Grottle said. 'What is
there that you can see that we cannot?'
'Yes! Yes! Go on! Explain!' Vilebroth Null said in his hideous
bubbling voice.
'You could use the grey seer's own methods against him!'
'What?;
'He has used Jaeger and Gurnisson against you. Why not use
them against him?'
There was another pause while the three great skaven exchanged
glances.
They are certainly formidable,' Vilebroth Null said. 'For non-
skaven.'
'Perhaps! Perhaps they could do it!' chittered Heskit One Eye.
'Do you think so? They are not skaven and Thanquol is a grey seer.
A grey seer!' Izak Grottle said and banged his fist on the table for
emphasis.
'With every humble respect,' Vilebroth Null said, 'you have not
encountered this pair. Heskit of Skryre and I have. A more wicked
and dangerous set of opponents it is hard to imagine. Even I, with
all my magical powers, barely eluded them.'
They slaughtered well over half of my company,' Heskit said,
leaving out his own part in the massacre.
'I defer to your greater experience,' Grottle said. 'But the question
remains: how will we get them to go after Grey Seer Thanquol?'
'A letter!' Lurk suggested, carried away by the sheer pleasure of
plotting.
'Yes! Yes! A letter,' Vilebroth Null said.
'It is fitting that Grey Seer Thanquol should be undone by the
device by which he sought to undo us.'
'But where and how will our two assassins get their chance at
him?'
'We must wait for the opportunity to arise,' Null said.
'And how will we write this letter?' Grottle asked. 'I for one have
no knowledge of these primitive human runes.'
'I have some knowledge of the human script,' Heskit One Eye
said almost apologetically. 'I need it for reading human schematics.'
'We must use the exact paper and pen that the grey seer uses,'
Grottle said.
'Our friend Lurk can acquire those,' Vilebroth Null said, smiling
horribly to reveal rotting teeth.
'And he can deliver the message too, in his usual way,' Heskit said
smugly.
'It appears that I won't be eating you today then, Lurk Snitch-
tongue,' Izak Grottle. said 'We need you alive. Of course, should you
attempt to betray us...'
That will change,' Heskit finished.
Lurk did not know whether to be glad or sorry. He appeared to
have prolonged his life but only at the risk of incurring Grey Seer
Thanquol's wrath. How did he get himself into these things?
'We're leaving the city,' Elissa said challengingly. She glared up at
Felix as if expecting him to contradict her. 'Hans and I. We have
decided to go.'
'I don't blame you,' Felix said. 'It's a bad place to be and it's going
to get worse.'
'Is that all you have to say?'
Felix looked around at the room they had shared during their
brief time together. It seemed small and empty, and soon it would
seem emptier still, once she had gone. Was there anything more to
say? He really could not blame her for wanting to leave and, to be
honest, he could see no real future for them together. So why did it
still hurt? Why did he have this feeling of hollowness within his
chest? Why did he feel this urge to ask her to stay?
'You're going with Hans?' he asked, just to hear some words. She
looked at him coldly and crossed her arms together under her
breasts defensively.
Yes,' she said. You're not going to try and stop us, are you?'
She seemed almost to want him to say yes, he thought. 'It's not
very safe outside the city right now,' he said.
'We're only going back to our village. It's less than a morning's
walk.'
'Will they take you? I hear that people from the city are being
stoned and shot with arrows if they go near villages and farms. In
case they have the plague.'
'We'll survive,' she said, but she sounded less sure of herself. 'Any-
way, it can't be worse than it is here, with the plague and the gangs
and the rats and all. At least back in the village they know us.'
They certainly know Hans. I thought you said the elders hated
him.'
'You would cast that up, wouldn't you? They'll take us back. I'll
tell them we're going to be married. They'll understand.'
'Are you? Going to be married, I mean.'
'I suppose so.'
'You don't sound very enthusiastic.'
'Oh Felix, what else am I supposed to do? Spend the rest of my
life being pawed by strangers in bars? Going about with footloose
mercenaries? It's not what I want. I want to go home.'
'You need any money?' he asked.
Suddenly she looked a little shifty. 'No,' she said. 'I'd best be
going. Hans is waiting.'
'Be careful,' he said, and meant it. 'It's not a safe city out there.'
'You should know,' she said. Suddenly she leaned forward and
kissed him passionately on the mouth. Just as he was about to take
her in his arms, she broke free and made for the door.
'You look after yourself now,' she said, and he thought he
detected a glimmer of tears in the corner of her eyes. Then she was
gone.
It was only afterwards, when he checked the loose floorboard,
that he discovered the purse of money Otto had given him was
gone. He lay on the bed, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. Well, he
thought, let her have the money. The chances were he would not
live long enough to spend it himself.
Grey Seer Thanquol glanced around the chamber at the assembled
skaven captains. His burning gaze seemed to defy anyone to speak
out. No one did.
Lurk counted the commanders present. All of the Clan Skab lead-
ers were here, plus Izak Grottle, Vilebroth Null and Heskit One Eye.
Chang Squik, the Clan Eshin assassin, skulked in one corner, glar-
ing occasionally at Lurk with hate-filled eyes. He had not forgotten
what Lurk had said about him on that long-ago day when the grey
seer had humiliated them both in front of the whole army.
The grey seer threw his arms wide. Trails of fire followed his paws
as he gathered magical power. That got everyone in the room's atten-
tion, Lurk thought. Suddenly all eyes were riveted on Thanquol as if,
with a single gesture, he might choose to annihilate anyone who did
not look at him. That was certainly a possibility, Lurk thought. If he
recognised the signs correctly, the grey seer had consumed an awful
lot of warpstone powder.
Lurk shivered and continued to chew on the foul herbs that Vile-
broth Null had given him to abate the plague. He fought down the
urge to check within his breastplate and make sure the parchment
and quill he had stolen from Thanquol's private stock were not slid-
ing into view. He knew that nothing would draw attention to him
quicker. He reassured himself that they were there. He could feel the
nib of the pen poking into the tender fur beneath his armpit.
Tonight is the night you have all been waiting for!' Thanquol
said.' Tonight we will smash-crush the humans once and for all.
Tonight we will invade the city and enslave all the occupants.
Tonight we will strike a blow for the Under Empire and the skaven
nation that will long be remembered!'
Thanquol paused impressively and glanced around the room
once more, as if waiting for an interruption. No one dared to speak,
but Lurk saw Null, One Eye and Grottle exchange glances, before
looking at him. He hoped for all their sakes that the grey seer had
not noticed. He glanced nervously at Thanquol, but fortunately the
grey seer seemed to be caught up in the flow of his own mad elo-
quence.
'We will grind the humans beneath the iron paw of our massed
skaven army. We will carry them off into inevitable slavery. Their
wealth will be ours. Their city will be ours. Their souls will be
offered screaming to the Horned Rat.'
Thanquol paused once more and Izak Grottle found the courage
to ask the question that Lurk could tell had been on everyone's
mind.
'And how is this to be accomplished, great leader?'
'How? How indeed! By a plan at once simple and yet stagger-
ingly cunning. By a use of force and sorcery which will be talked
about down the ages. By overwhelming ferocity and superior
skaven technology. By-'
'By what precise means, Grey Seer Thanquol?' Vilebroth Null
interrupted. 'I humbly suggest that, like every skaven out of runt-
hood, we are all familiar with the general methods of attack.'
For a moment Lurk could tell that Thanquol was weighing up
the pros and cons of blasting the plague monk into his compo-
nent atoms for his insolence. He was glad when prudent skaven
caution won out and the grey seer continued to speak.
'I was just coming to that, as you would have discovered had
you not interrupted me. We will attack through the sewers. Each of
you will lead your assigned force to a point marked on the map.'
With this, the grey seer indicated the complex mass of symbols
inscribed on the large sheet of parchment hanging behind him.
Many of the assembled leaders leaned forward to see where they
would be sent.
'I do not see your rune on this plan,' Heskit One Eye said. 'What
will you be doing, grey seer?'
Thanquol glared at him with burning red eyes. 'I will be where
you would expect your leader to be, performing the most difficult
and dangerous of tasks.'
Silence fell over the assembled skaven leaders. This was not in
point of fact where they would have expected their leader to be at
all. They would expect him to be safely in the rear directing oper-
ations. The warpstone Thanquol had consumed appeared to make
him talkative. He spoke on, into the silence.
'I will be leading the crowning attack. I will lead the assault by
our stormvermin which will seize the palace of the breeder,
Emmanuelle, and capture all of the city's rulers. Tonight they are
having a ball, one of their purposeless social events. I will fall on
them by surprise and have them all in my paw. Leaderless, the
humans will surely fall to our attack.'
There were more murmurings from the assembled skaven. It
was a good plan, and a bold one. Lurk wondered if any of the oth-
ers saw what he saw. The grey seer had chosen his place in the
assault carefully. By managing this bold stroke, by capturing the
human leaders, he would assure himself of the lion's share of the
glory. Further, it would undoubtedly be a lot safer attacking a
bunch of humans and their breeders dressed for a ball than fight-
ing massed troops in the city.
'Such a position is too dangerous for a leader of your great cun-
ning,' Heskit One Eye said. 'It would be a tragedy if the genius of
Thanquol was to be lost to skavendom. To prevent such a tragedy,
I will lead this assault. I will shoulder the terrible risks.'
Lurk covered his mouth with a paw to prevent a snigger escap-
ing; at least one other skaven had realised what was going on.
'No! No!' Izak Grottle said. 'I and my rat-ogres are ideally
suited for this task. We will overwhelm all-'
Grottle's words were drowned out by the shouts of all the other
skaven volunteers. Thanquol let them call out for a few minutes
before silencing them with a gesture.
'Unfortunately, it will require my potent sorcery to effect
entrance to the palace. I must be present.'
Then I will gladly lay down my life to guard you,' Izak Grottle
said, obviously determined to be present to share in the triumph.
'And I,' Heskit One Eye said.
'And I,' shouted every other skaven present, save Lurk.
'No! No! I appreciate your concern, brother skaven, but your
leadership will be required on other, no-less-critical parts of the bat-
tlefield.'
It was obvious that Thanquol intended to share his glorious tri-
umph with no one. The assembled war leaders subsided into
disappointed chittering.
'I have here a route map, and a schedule for each of you,
inscribed with precise instructions. All of you, that is, except for
Lurk Snitchtongue. I would have a word with Lurk in private.'
Lurk felt his heart start to race, and it was all he could do to pre-
vent himself squirting the musk of fear. Had the grey seer found
out about his plotting with the three clan representatives? Was he
about to enact some terrible revenge? Was there any way Lurk
could avoid this meeting?
He turned desperate eyes on his three co-conspirators and saw
that they glared at him evilly. If looks could kill, Lurk knew, those
three would have put him in a coffin. They feared he would betray
them to save his own skin - and of course they were right.
As the war leaders trooped forward one by one to receive the grey
seer's blessing and their final instructions, Lurk prayed to the
Horned Rat to preserve him.
.
Felix wandered around until he arrived at his brother's townhouse.
He was not surprised to see that it was locked arid guarded. He was
surprised to find that Otto and his wife had not fled the city, and
furthermore that the guards recognised him and allowed him to
pass.
Otto waited in his study to greet him. He was still working,
inscribing things in his ledgers and writing dispatches that might
never be received, intended for other branches of the Jaeger busi-
nesses. Felix was strangely proud of him at that moment. It took a
great deal of courage to continue to work under these trying cir-
cumstances.
'What can I do for you, Felix?' Otto asked, without looking up.
'Nothing. I just came by to see how you were.'
'Fine!' Otto gave a wan smile. 'Business is booming.'
'Is it?'
'Of course not! Rats are eating the stock. The workers are stealing
everything that isn't nailed down. The customers are dying of the
plague.'
'Why haven't you left town?'
'Someone has to remain and look after our interests. This will all
pass, you know. Disturbances always do. Then there'll be the busi-
ness of rebuilding. Folk will need wool and timber and building
materials. They'll need luxury goods to replace what's been looted.
They'll need credit to buy it all. And when they do, Jaegers of Alt-
dorf will still be here.'
'I'll bet you will.'
'And what about you?' Otto asked, looking up at last.
'I'm waiting to see the. end of this all. I'm waiting for the skaven
to show themselves.'
'You think they will?'
'I'm sure of it. I'm certain that this is all their doing somehow.'
'How can you be so sure?'
Felix looked at his brother long and hard. 'Can you keep secrets?'
'You know I can.'
Felix decided that it was true. In his business Otto would need a
great deal of discretion.
'What I'm going to tell you could get me hanged or burned at the
stake.'
'What you and the dwarf did in Altdorf could get you that
already. You're a long way from the capital, Felix, and I'm not going
to turn you in.'
Felix guessed that was true, and somehow he felt a need to tell
someone exactly what had happened. So he told Otto the full tale
of his encounters with the skaven, from the first day in the sewer to
the last battle on the barge. He omitted nothing, including his duel
with von Halstadt. Otto looked at him with an expression that went
from incredulity to seriousness to, finally, belief.
You're not making this up, are you?'
'No.'
You always did take those hero tales you read too seriously, lit-
tle brother.'
Felix smiled and Otto smiled back. 'I did, didn't I?'
'What is it like, living in one?'
'Not what I expected. Not what I expected at all.' Felix decided it
was time to say what he had come to say.
'Otto - I think you and your wife should leave the city. I think
the skaven are going to come soon, and that things will not be
pleasant.'
Otto laughed. 'We have armed servants and this house is a
fortress, Felix. We will be much safer here than in the country.'
Felix knew his brother well enough to understand that there
would be no persuading him. 'You know your own business best,'
he said.
Otto nodded. 'Now come eat, man. I can hear your stomach
rumbling from here.'
'What is it, mightiest of mages? What do you require?'
Lurk Snitchtongue bowed and scraped before Grey Seer
Thanquol, searching for the words that would save him. He felt sure
that the grey seer's supernatural powers had enabled him to see
Lurk's treachery and that now he was going to be punished. The ter-
rible glow of warpstone still filled Thanquol's eyes, and Lurk could
almost sense the dark energies that seethed within him.
'It concerns Vilebroth Null,' Grey Seer Thanquol said with an evil
smile.
Lurk felt his musk glands contract. He would have spoken then
but his tongue was tied. It felt like it had suddenly stuck to the roof
of his mouth. All he could do was nod his head in a guilty fashion.
'And Heskit One Eye,' Thanquol said, his malevolent grin stretch-
ing still further.
A plea for mercy stuck in Lurk's throat. He tried to force it out but
it just would not come.
'And Izak Grottle,' Thanquol added. His burning eyes held Lurk
pinned to the spot.
The smaller skaven felt like a bird paralysed before the gaze of a
serpent. He nodded again and fell to his knees, paws clutched
before him in a gesture of abasement.
'Get up! Get up!' Thanquol said. 'They are not so fearsome. No!
Not at all. Now is the time to be rid of them once and for all and
you will help me do it!'
'Get rid of them, mightiest of masters?'
Yes! Did you see the way they questioned me when I was giving
orders to the army? Did you see the way they tried to steal the glory
from my brilliant plan? My mind is made up! I will tolerate them
no longer. This night they will die!'
'How? How, lord of seers? Will you blast them with magic?'
'No! No! Idiot! My hands must remain clean. No - we will use
the tried and tested method. I will inform my two pawns of their
whereabouts. This evening, when the battle comes, my enemies will
meet with the dwarf's axe. Then, hopefully, the rest of their force
will bring down that interfering twosome.'
'How will you engineer this, cleverest of conspirators?'
'I have assigned all three to one strike group. Its place of emer-
gence is very dose to the burrow where Jaeger and Gurnisson and a
horde of mercenaries dwell. You are also assigned to that group.
You will go through first, on pretext of scouting, and you will warn
that horrid pair of what is about to occur!'
'Yes! Yes! Consider it done, most supreme of schemers!'
'Take this message and see that it is delivered. Then flee to my
presence and I will see that you are... suitably rewarded for your
loyalty!'
Lurk did not like the emphasis the grey seer put on that last
phrase at all, but he took the letter and, still bowing, backed from
Thanquol's presence.
Felix rang Drexler's doorbell more from hope than any real belief
that the doctor would be there, so he was pleasantly surprised when
the viewing slot was opened and a servant peered out.
'Oh, it's you, Herr Jaeger,' he said. 'Are you alone?'
'Yes, and I would speak with your master.'
'Best come in then.' Felix heard bolts being thrown and the door
creak open. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure that no
bandits were poised to take advantage of the situation, then hurried
through. The servant slammed the door behind him.
Felix strode through the corridors of the doctor's mansion. It felt
like years since he had first come here with Elissa, though in fact it
had only been weeks. How had things changed so quickly, he asked
himself, suppressing a flash of loneliness and sadness at the
thought the woman was gone. He shook his head and smiled sadly,
knowing mat her departure was one of the reasons why he was here.
He was just moving around to keep himself busy and avoid think-
ing about things.
The servant showed him into Drexler's study. The doctor sat by
his fire, looking drained and weary. Weeks of treating plague victims
had obviously taken something out of him. There were lines on his
face that had not been there when Felix had last seen him, and a
hint of pallor beneath his tan.
'Herr Jaeger, what can I do for you?'
'I've brought back your book,' Felix said, producing the doctor's
copy of Leiber's work. 'I would have returned it sooner, but I have
been very busy.'
The doctor smiled wanly. 'So Herr Ostwald has told me. It seems
Aldred chose a worthy successor for ownership of his blade.'
'I'm not so convinced,' Felix said, gesturing vaguely in the direction
of the city. 'All of my and Gotrek's efforts seem to have come to naught.'
'Do not be sure of that, Herr Jaeger. What man can tell of all the con-
sequences of his actions? It may be that things would be a lot worse
without your intervention.'
'I wish I could believe that but I do not think it is so.'
'Only Sigmar can judge a man's actions, Herr Jaeger, and I believe
that in some ways he smiles upon you and your friend. You are still
here, aren't you? How many others would be able to say the same if
they had undergone your adventures? I know I could not.'
Felix looked at him, struck by the fact that there was some truth in
the man's words. 'You are a good doctor, Herr Drexler. I feel better just
for talking to you.'
'Perhaps you should wait until you see my bill before you thank me,'
Drexler said. His smile showed that he was joking. 'You found what
you wanted in the book?'
Felix set it down on the table. 'More than I ever wanted. I'm not sure
that it helps knowing how evil and depraved the rat-men are.'
'Again, Herr Jaeger, who knows what knowledge might prove useful?
Have some food. I have managed to preserve something from the
afflictions of our city.'
Felix thought guiltily of the meal which he had already eaten at
Otto's. His stomach felt full but, well, on the other hand he had no idea
when he might eat again. If Gotrek's theory about the skaven's immi-
nent onslaught was going to be correct, he was going to need all his
strength. 'Why not?' he said. 'It may be the last meal I get!'
'Why do you say that?' Drexler asked, and Felix decided that now
was the time to deliver his warning.
'Because I believe that the skaven will attack the city soon. I also
think that you should leave. I say this as a friend.'
'I thank you for the warning, Herr Jaeger, but I cannot go today. You
see, tonight I am attending a ball at the palace, in the presence of Elec-
tor Countess Emmanuelle herself.'
Somehow the thought sent a shiver running down Felix's spine.
Lurk knew it was going to be bad when he felt the heavy hand of one
of Izak Grottle's troops on his shoulder and he was hustled unceremo-
niously into the fat skaven's palanquin. He found himself looking up
into the folds of flesh beneath the chin of the gigantic Moulder pack-
master. Grottle's huge belly virtually pressed him back against the
cushions of the palanquin with a life of its own.
'Now where are you going?' Izak Grottle asked. 'Where indeed?'
Lurk thought fast. He did not like the hungry gleam that had
appeared in the packmaster's eye. He thought of the letter that he
bore for the grey seer. He thought of the disease that threatened to
fill his lungs with pus, unless the abbot continued to intervene on
his behalf with the Horned Rat. 'I was just on my way to see you,
most majestic of Moulders.'
'Then it is fortunate I have found you. Tell me, what is it that you
are carrying?'
Lurk told him everything. He had expected Izak Grottle to reach
out with one podgy hand and snap his neck but the packmaster
merely laughed a rich booming laugh. 'It would appear the grey seer
has been too clever for his own good. You will deliver your message,
but it will be one I shall dictate and Heskit One Eye shall write
down.'
'As you wish, most potent of all packmasters.'
Felix trudged back towards the Blind Pig, feeling almost too full to
move. Over the past few weeks his stomach had shrunk and what
once might have been a normal meal now left him feeling bloated.
Two such meals in one day made him feel like he was going to
explode.
He wore a new herbal talisman given to him by the doctor and
he carried another within his pouch for Gotrek. It was a slight reas-
surance to him. So far, he had not caught the plague, but that might
not signify anything. Nobody else he knew had either. Perhaps it
was mere chance that had spared them, or perhaps it was the fact
that Heinz insisted they kill every last rat they spotted around the
Pig. Felix could not even begin to guess. He only knew that he was
grateful to Drexler for the gift.
He looked around into the gathering gloom and shivered. The
city looked like a mere ghost of the thriving metropolis it had been
when he and Gotrek first arrived. Many buildings had burned
down. More were empty. No lights shone in most of the tenements.
The bustling life of the streets had been replaced by an aura of fear.
The only ones likely to be abroad now were predators - and their
victims.
He felt the flesh crawl between his shoulder blades, and was sud-
denly convinced that someone was watching him. He turned his
head to look at the mouth of a nearby alley. The whoosh of air
alerted him too late. Something hit him on the skull. He shook his
head in response, half expecting a surge of pain. None came. He
raised his fingers to his brow but felt no blood. He looked down to
see what had hit him and saw that it was a rolled-up piece of parch-
ment, similar to all the others which had borne a warning
concerning the skaven. He bent down to pick it up and glanced
round at the same time. He heard the sound of scuttling down a
nearby alley, and realised that it was most likely whoever had
thrown the paper.
Without thinking, Felix scooped up the parchment and raced off
in pursuit. He stretched his long legs to the maximum as he ran
down the alley. Ahead of him he thought he caught sight of a
cowled figure. Was it possible that that was a long rodent-like tail
protruding out from under that monkish robe? All too possible, he
decided.
The figure had reached the end of the alley and turned hastily
down another of the winding maze of streets. Felix raced past open
doorways, scattering amazed-looking beggars and treading mon-
strous rats underfoot as he raced onwards. His heartbeat sounded
loud in his chest and sweat poured down his face. He felt nauseous
and wished that he had not eaten quite so much at Doctor Drexler's,
particularly after the heavy meal at his brother's. He clutched the
scroll tight in one hand and restrained the scabbard flapping on his
belt with the other.
'Stop, skaven!' he shouted. His words had no effect on the flee-
ing rat-man. All the beggars leapt for cover within the nearest door.
Felix raced on.
Why am I doing this, he asked himself? As far as he knew, the
skaven ahead had done them nothing but favours by warning him of
his brethren's plans. In that case, why was he fleeing, Felix asked him-
self - but he already had an answer. Who could tell why the rat-men
did anything? Who could guess at the reasons of a creature that was
not even human?
Felix's heart leapt as he saw the rat-man trip and fall. Perhaps he
could overhaul it after all. Caught up in the fury of the chase, he
desperately wanted to do so. He wanted to grab the rat-man and
look into its eyes and question it. Not, he thought, that it would
likely understand the human tongue. According to Leiber, the rat-
men had their own languages, including a number of specialised
dialects used by the various clans. Still, at least this one knew
enough Reikspiel to write its notes, Felix thought, so perhaps it
could be interrogated. He ran faster, hope blazing in his breast that
at last he might be able to get some answers to his questions about
the skaven.
* * *
Lurk glanced back over his shoulder and chittered a curse. It was
no use. That foolish human was still following him! Why? What did
it hope to achieve by persecuting him in this way? Why could it not
leave him alone and read the message that Heskit One Eye had
inscribed on the parchment? If it did that, it would surely realise
that it had more urgent business this night - like heading to the
palace and thwarting Grey Seer Thanquol's plan.
Life was so unfair, Lurk thought unhappily. Here he was, in poor
health, brow-beaten by some of the most ferocious skaven who ever
lived, about to make an enemy of one of the mightiest sorcerers of
his race. His head hurt. His eyes burned with fever. His heart felt like
it was going to give out from the strain of this race. His lungs felt
like they were on fire. And where was he? Not in some comfortable
burrow back in Skavenblight, but being pursued through the horri-
bly open streets of this human city by a large and terrifying warrior.
It was like some dreadful nightmare. The sheer unfairness of it all
galled Lurk. What had he ever done to deserve this?
He shot another backward glance and saw that his pursuer was
starting to narrow the distance that separated them. Lurk prayed
that night would come, or that mist would arise. He felt certain that
in darkness and shadow, he could lose the human. Or if he could
just reach the hidden entrance to the sewers where the bulk of the
invasion force waited, he would find safety. He risked another look
back - and cursed as he felt his feet go out from beneath him.
He knew he should have looked where he was going!
Felix closed the gap quickly as he saw the skaven scrabble to its
feet. He wondered briefly whether he should pause and draw his
sword. He decided against it. He would lose ground again and the
skaven did not appear to be armed. He could always produce his
blade when he had the rat-man cornered. Breathing heavily, he ran
on.
Praise the Horned Rat, thought Lurk! Ahead of him he could see
the opening into the sewers. He knew that he merely had to leap
down it and he would be safe in the comforting bosom of the
skaven army. Down there waited Vilebroth Null, Izak Grottle, Hes-
kit One Eye and all their soldiers. But as he gathered his legs
beneath him in preparation for the mighty leap that would carry
him to safety, he felt a powerful hand clamp onto his shoulder.
Felix felt the skaven stiffen as he grabbed it. He pulled hard, spin-
ning it around - and almost let go as the wicked-looking creature
glared up at him with hate-filled eyes. Of all the rat-men he had ever
encountered this was the most sly and nasty looking. It was smaller
and thinner than most but had a wiry strength that made it difficult
to hold.
'Now,' Felix panted. 'Tell me what you're doing here!'
A sudden pain flared in his left wrist as the rat-man bit it. Over-
come by shock, Felix let go.
Lurk broke free from his tormentor's grip and dropped gratefully
into the sewer. Breaking the surface, he looked around and saw that
the skaven assault force had already gathered. A horde of rat-men
waited in attendance. He looked around and saw Izak Grottle and
the others waiting in the leader's position at the rear. A stormvermin
clawleader looked down at Lurk as he pulled himself out of the filth
and shook his fur clean.
'What is it?' the clawleader asked.
'I am pursued...' Lurk gasped without thinking. Before he could
expand on his statement the clawleader reacted, keen to grab some
glory.
'Right!' the skaven shouted. 'Quick-quick! Charge!'
Felix inspected his bitten wrist. It did not look too bad, he thought.
Then he glanced up in horror as he heard the first of the rat-men
begin to swarm up the sewer access ladder. Only moments before
he had debated whether to pursue the escaping skaven into the sew-
ers. Now he saw that it would have been suicidal. Already the
leering face and snapping jaws of a burly, black-armoured rat-man
had emerged into the gloom. Felix wasted no time. He launched a
hefty kick that sent the furiously squeaking skaven tumbling back
down among his fellows, and then turned and ran.
Moments later a mass of furiously chittering skaven warriors
emerged into the alley. Somewhat ahead of schedule, the great inva-
sion of Nuln had begun.
'No! No!' Lurk squeaked as the tightly packed mass of skaven war-
riors surged past him. The press of furry bodies pushed him back
into the foul waters of the sewer. For a horrible moment he felt like
he was going to drown, but then he broke the surface once more,
just in time to see the last of the stormvermin clambering with unre-
strained fury into the light. Above him, the mad face of Vilebroth
Null leered down.
'Did you deliver the message?' burbled the low abbot of the
plague monks.
Yes! Yes!' Lurk chittered, thinking that now was possibly not the
best time to tell Null that the skaven troops above were now doing
their best to hunt down and kill the man to whom the message had
been delivered.
Felix could hear the shouts of his foul pursuers behind him, and the
screams of the unfortunates who got in their way. A quick glance over
his shoulder revealed that the skaven were putting anyone in their
path to the sword. The sight of it sickened Felix but in a way he was
also glad. Every little pause and hesitation enabled him to increase his
lead over them.
His wrist throbbed where the little skaven had bitten it. He noticed
that the scroll it had thrown at him was crumpled in his hand. Briefly
he toyed with throwing it away. Instead he thrust it inside his tunic
and continued to sprint. At least he was not weighed down with heavy
armour the way his pursuers were.
The thought trickled slowly into his mind that the skaven invasion
must have started. The sight of so many heavily armed rat-men in the
streets could only mean that they were ready to begin an all-out attack
on the city and that they had no fear of the defenders. Right now, Felix
guessed, their confidence was justified. He could not see a single
member of the city guard. Of course, most of them were probably up
in the Noble Quarter around the palace, making sure all the guests at
the countess's party were safe.
Felix slammed into a wall and rebounded again, turning quickly to
hurtle down a connecting alley. This area or narrow lanes and alleys
was a veritable maze and he was not at all sure he was heading in the
right direction. He could only move as quickly as possible and listen
to the noise of his pursuers, praying that he did not blunder round in
a complete circle and run right into them again.
He searched his brain for a plan, but all he could come up with was
to get back to the Blind Pig as quickly as possible and warn Gotrek and
the others. At least there was a strong force of mercenaries and a
potential rallying point for any human warriors. Now all he had to do
was find a way out. His heart filled with fear, he continued to run.
Lurk tried to keep himself right in the middle of the teeming mass of
warriors. He had endured enough excitement for one evening and did
not need any more. He focused his attention on keeping Izak Grottle
in sight. The Moulder packmaster's bodyguard of huge rat-ogres rep-
resented his best hope of protection in the coming conflict. Lurk
seriously doubted that anyone would want to attack the huge crea-
tures.
So far, the assault appeared to be going well. The skaven force in
this area had met with little resistance. He could smell burning and
the distinctive oil-and-naphtha smell of warpfire throwers. From
the backwash of light off to the south he realised that some of the
Clan Skryre warpfire throwers were using their weapons on the
buildings. Squinting through the shadows, Lurk could see jets of
flame squirting out at the tenements. Fire licked and curled at the
woodwork. Stone began to splinter and crack under the sheer heat
generated by the awesome skaven weapons.
Lurk was not so certain that this was a good idea. He was not sure
Grey Seer Thanquol would approve of such indiscriminate destruc-
tion of his future property. Of course, if the message Lurk had
delivered achieved its goal, the grey seer would be in no position to
voice his objections. He would be dead.
Lurk wondered whether the human, Jaeger, had managed to
escape. Part of him hoped not. He could still remember the
wretched human's hand clamped on his shoulder, and the pain
where the iron fingers had bit into his fur. There was no sign that he
had been taken prisoner, nor any sign of his corpse. Not that that
meant anything, Lurk thought. In these winding alleys, already
crammed with skaven victims, a body could be lying almost any-
where. Already the skaven force had started to break up and fan out.
Some of the warriors, meeting little resistance, had already begin
looting and eating.
Lurk was not sure that this was a good idea either. Surely things
could not go so easily. Surely they would meet more resistance than
this? Where were the accursed human warriors? His questions
received no answers. All around, buildings were beginning to burn.
Chang Squik clambered up the sheer face of the cliff leading to the
palace of the human breeder, Emmanuelle. The line attached to his
grapnel held firm. The heavy weight of the rune-encrusted seeing
stone entrusted to him by Grey Seer Thanquol personally rested
securely in the knapsack on his back. Chang Squik braced himself
and scrabbled with the daws of his feet for purchase on the smooth
stone of the cliff face. Things were going well. In a few more min-
utes he would be in position with the stone placed within the halls
of the palace, ready for whatever mighty magic the grey seer had
planned. He would have played his part in the skaven victory today
- and gone some way towards mitigating the disgrace of his failure
to kill the dwarf and his human henchman. Hopefully that painful
memory was something which could be laid to rest before this
night was over too.
Suddenly below him, in the distance, he heard the faint but dis-
tinct chittering of skaven war cries, and the answering screams of
their human victims. Twisting on the rope he glanced back and saw
the eerie glow of what could only be warpfire throwers being used
in the distance. Surely the attack had not begun already? The fools
were supposed to wait until he was within the palace and Grey Seer
Thanquol's plan had been implemented!
He cursed and redoubled his efforts to climb. The noise and the
sight of the fire would draw human sentries and other spectators to
the battlements above him. Chang Squik could ill afford to have his
grapnel line discovered. All it would take would be one human with
a knife to slice the black rope, and his long and honourable career
would come to an end. Controlling his urge to squirt the musk of
fear, the Clan Eshin assassin pulled himself upward.
The strange greenish light in the sky confirmed Felix's suspicions
that the invasion had indeed begun. He recognised the colour of
the flames as being the same as those produced by the strange
weapons which had destroyed the College of Engineering. Look-
ing back, he could see fire leaping from the rooftops of blazing
tenements. The college had been a separate building isolated
behind the walls of its own grounds. The buildings here in this
part of the city, in contrast, were packed as tight together as drunks
in a crowded tavern. Many of them leaned conspiratorially over
alleyways. Some were linked by high bridges far above the ground,
and by supporting arches in the alleys. Most had thatched roofs
and wooden support beams. Felix shivered in spite of himself. The
conflagration was going to spread quickly. The city was going to
burn.
Still, at least for the moment he seemed to have lost his pursuers.
There was not a rat-man in sight. Better yet, he recognised this street
at last and knew that he was not too far from the Blind Pig. He
paused, leaning forward with his hands braced on his knees, pant-
ing for breath and shaking his head to clear the sweat from his eyes.
Once he reached the tavern he would be able to put together a plan
with Gotrek and the others.
Suddenly, from the mouth of a nearby alley he heard a shrieked
war cry. Looking up, he saw a large group of skaven erupt out into
the cobbled street. Gathering all his energy, Felix ran for his life.
Grey Seer Thanquol led his elite force of stormvermin into posi-
tion. His keen grey seer's intuition told him that directly above
them was the palace. He could sense its presence. He trampled the
corpse of the sewer watchman beneath his paw and allowed him-
self to gloat. So far the Clan Eshin assassins had done their work.
Every human in the sewers who might have given away their pres-
ence was dead. By now, teams of gutter runners would be in
position at the base of the cliff on which the castle rested. Hope-
fully, by now Chang Squik would be in position.
Thanquol produced the scrying stone from within his robes. He
began to mutter the incantations which would link it to the twin
carried by the leader of the Eshin forces. Now would be the time
for a mighty feat of sorcery, one that would grant the skaven swift
and inevitable victory. In order to perform it, Thanquol knew he
would need vast amounts of power and therein lay the danger.
In order to acquire enough mystical energy to power the spells
that he needed to perform, Thanquol would have to consume an
enormous amount of warpstone, and that had its dangers. This
was not the mild, refined stuff which made up his snuff. No, this
was the pure product, the very essence of magic, concentrated and
purified by skaven alchemists. It was a substance capable of pro-
viding its user with awesome power, but its use carried equally
awesome dangers. Many grey seers had been driven over the edge
into madness by the corrosive effects of the substance on their
sanity. Others had been reduced to mindless Chaos-spawn by its
mutating effects. Taken in large enough doses by those of insuffi-
ciently strong will, warpstone could devolve its user into a
formless, amorphous thing.
But what was that to him, mightiest of grey seers? Thanquol was
a practiced user of warpstone, was capable of consuming it in
gigantic quantities without ill effect. The things that happened to
all those others could not happen to him. Definitely, positively
not...
For a moment, brief niggling doubt flared in Thanquol's mind.
What if there was something wrong with the warpstone? What if it
were not pure but contaminated with other stuff? Such things had
happened. What if Thanquol were not as strong as he believed?
Mistakes in dosage were always possible. But only for a second did
the grey seer hesitate, before his natural confidence in his own
mighty abilities returned. He was not one to flinch from the dan-
gers of warpstone. In fact, he admitted to himself, he rather
enjoyed it. He reminded himself of this as he reached into his
pouch and put the first luminous piece of warpstone onto his
tongue. It tingled even as he consumed it. Now memories of his
long-gone youth came back to him. He recalled his initiation into
the use of warpstone.
No, thought Thanquol, there was nothing to fear here. So think-
ing, he began preparing himself, making himself ready for when
the correct time came to cast the spell which would grant his forces
victory.
Ahead Felix could see the lights of the Blind Pig. A wave of relief
passed through him. If the tavern did not quite represent safety, at
least it had to be better than this nightmare chase through the dark-
ened streets with a horde of shrieking rat-men on his trail. He could
see Boris and Stephan and a host of their companions standing in
the street, shielding their eyes as they studied the distant fires.
'Beware! Skaven!' Felix shouted and saw them all reach for their
weapons. In moments, swords glittered in the half-light of the
burning city. From inside the tavern a number of armoured figures
spilled out into the gloom. Felix was relieved to see the massive
squat figure of Gotrek among them. There was something enor-
mously reassuring under these circumstances about the massive
axe clutched in his hands.
Felix raced up to the warriors as they braced themselves for the
skaven attack. Behind him the skaven, unwilling or unable to give
up the heady rush of the chase, came on like an avalanche of fur
and fury.
Felix made his way through the throng to stand beside Gotrek.
The Slayer had the usual look of mad joy in his one good eye that
he always got before combat.
'I see you found our scuttling little friends, manling,' he said, run-
ning his thumb along the blade of his axe until a bright red bead of
blood appeared.
'Yes,' Felix gasped, struggling to get his breath back before the
combat began.
'Good. Let's get killing then!'
Doctor Drexler looked around him. Something was very wrong.
Many of the warriors had gone to the battlements to look at the fires
and not come back. Ostwald had already herded the women back
into the ballroom. Messengers had been rushing to and fro between
Ostwald, Countess Emmanuelle and those outside. Something was
very definitely happening and he needed to find out what it was. If
he had not known better, he would have sworn that Ostwald had
ordered the orchestra to play louder to drown out the sounds of the
disturbance.
That must be it, Drexler thought, knowing that he had guessed the
truth. Something was happening and in order to forestall a panic,
Hieronymous was covering it up. He glanced around at the others pre-
sent, and adjusted his mask. Most of the people in the ballroom
consisted of ladies of rank, together with a sprinkling of hangers-on,
toadies and those simply too drunk to leave the hall. Of course there
were footmen present, and a few guards too, but the situation was not
very reassuring. He glanced across at Ostwald, not wanting to divulge
the connection between them but filled with curiosity about what was
going on. The secretary was garbed as a wood elf warrior, complete
with bow. Drexler walked up to him, still nibbling at a savoury.
'What has happened?' he asked.
'Some disturbance in the town, Herr Doctor. Arson and possibly
worse. With Her Serenity's permission, I have ordered troops from the
barracks to quell the problem.'
'Nothing wrong in the palace then?'
'Not as far as I know, but I have ordered the guards to double-check.'
'Let us pray to Sigmar that it is only some looters. Things have been
dreadful recendy.'
'I fear the worst,' Ostwald said, looking up as another courier
approached. Drexler agreed. Somewhere nearby his sorcerously trained
senses told him that powerful magic was gathering.
Chang Squik cursed and ducked for cover. The place smelled like a
reeking midden. Looking around with his dark-accustomed eyes, he
could tell this was, in truth, a human privy. Well, there were worse
places to hide, he told himself, but this was not going to help his mis-
sion.
He knew it was no use. He was not going to make it to the great
chamber above the ballroom that he and the grey seer had agreed on.
All of the stolen maps of the palace he had studied and still carried in
his head told him this. He just did not have the time to get there and,
even with his supreme skills at sneaking and skulking, he doubted that
he could find his way, unseen, through the mass of humans crowding
the palace corridors and heading to the battlements in search of a view
of what was going on below. This place was just going to have to do.
He took the knapsack from his back and reached within. The heat
and the glow produced by the seeing stone told him that he was only
just in time. Perhaps even a little late. He wondered how long the grey
seer had already spent glaring out into the darkness of the inside of his
pack. He shuddered when he thought of the wrath of Thanquol, as he
squatted down, pressed his nose to the side of the stone, and gave the
thumbs-up sign.
* * *
Felix ducked the swipe of a jagged scimitar and lashed out with his
sword. His blow took the skaven beneath the ribs, and cleaved
upwards in search of its heart. The skaven gave an eerie high-pitched
shriek, clutched its chest, and died. It fell to the ground even as Felix
withdrew his blade from its chest.
Felix glanced around at the swirling melee. To his right he saw
Heinz dash out the brains of a skaven leader with the cosh he held
in his left hand, while he fended off the attack of another skaven
with the blade he held in his right. Boris and Stephan fought back-
to-back in the teeth of the tide of rat-men. Somewhere in the
distance he could hear Gotrek's bellowed war cry.
Right at this moment, it was difficult to tell how the fight was
going. The mercenaries seemed to be holding their own against the
skaven, and the battle seemed to have attracted the attention of oth-
ers. Humans were pouring out of the nearby tenements. Some
clutched bedpans and pokers and other improvised weapons. Oth-
ers carried swords and blunderbusses and other, rather more
useful-looking, instruments of destruction. It seemed that the citi-
zens had decided that they would rather meet their end in battle
with their foes than be burned to death in their homes. That was
good, thought Felix, for the mercenaries needed all the help they
could get as more and more skaven were being drawn through the
blazing streets to the sound of battle.
Even as he stood there, a severed head came flying out of the
gloom, spinning, spilling blood from disconnected arteries, spray-
ing all those below it with a shower of black raindrops. It arced
straight toward Felix and he batted it aside with his sword. Salty
black fluid splattered his face and he fought the urge to lick his lips
to clean them. Looking down he saw that the head belonged to a
huge skaven warrior.
He wiped his face with his cloak quickly, worried that something
might take advantage of his blindness and stab him. Shaking his
head he moved forward cautiously to where he could hear Gotrek
shouting. Ahead of him he could see an enormous ruck. The Slayer
stood poised atop what first Felix took to be an enormous mound
of bodies but swiftly realised was a plague cart. A wave of furious
skaven scrabbled to reach him but were being hewn down by the
awesome power of the Slayer's axe.
In the distance, looming over the great mass of lesser skaven,
Felix could see a huge wedge of creatures he had come to think of
as rat-ogres. Gotrek obviously saw them too, for he dived from the
top of the plague cart into the seething sea of skaven. Within
moments, his flickering axe had left a wall of broken and dying
bodies all around him as he thrust his way towards the giant mon-
sters that were his goal. Felix debated for only a moment whether to
follow him and then pushed forward, shouting: 'Follow me, lads!
Let's kill some bloody rat-men.'
As he hacked to left and right, he hoped the mercenaries were lis-
tening and following, otherwise he and Gotrek were in for a hard
time when they closed with the rat-ogres.
Thanquol glared into his scrying crystal. His head swam. His
brain felt aflame. The power of the warpstone flowed through his
veins like a drug. It made him feel dizzy and wonderful at the same
time. At this moment, he felt sure he could perceive the underlying
pattern of mystical forces focused on the crystal. He concentrated
harder on making the thing work.
At last the darkness had cleared. At last he could see the leering
face of Chang Squik. It appeared that the Clan Eshin assassin had
reached his objective. Good, Thanquol thought. About time. He
could barely contain the enormous mass of warpstone-fuelled mys-
tical energy which boiled within him. He felt so saturated with
power that it seemed that at any minute he might explode. His head
swam and his vision blurred; everything seemed to swim around
him. Frantically he tried to remember the syllables of the spell he
had memorised so long ago in that great black book in the Accursed
Library.
For a long moment the words eluded him, squirming and slid-
ing just out of reach of his thought processes. Thanquol bit the
insides of his cheek until he tasted blood. The pain seemed to
sharpen his wits, for eventually the words came to him. He opened
his lips and the syllables of his ancient language seemed to vomit
forth from his mouth, ejecting with them a roiling cloud of dark,
magical energy.
Thanquol's heartbeat accelerated to levels he would not have
believed were endurable. His heart thumped wildly in his chest
and his breathing was ragged and choked. He knew he was losing
control of his spell and fought to rein in the flow of power before
it destroyed him. Brain-blasting visions danced through his mind,
and he knew that his seer's gifts had been driven to incredible new
heights by the unprecedented amounts of warpstone he had con-
sumed. Briefly his consciousness seemed to leave his body and
scenes flickered through his mind in swift succession.
For a moment his spirit hovered over the city and he had a
panoramic view of all that was happening. Below him the streets
blazed with fire and violence. A river of skaven raced through the
city, killing all that were in their path. Here and there they had
encountered pockets of armed resistance where human garrisons
or just the mobs of citizens had taken to the streets in defence of
their homes. He saw swift, savage scuffles and giant rats devouring
the corpses of man and skaven alike. He saw burning buildings and
broken bodies. He saw the whole of the great ancient mancity of
Nuln in flames.
Thanquol's attention was drawn to one particular struggle which
suddenly leapt into focus when he recognised two alarmingly
familiar figures. The dwarf and the human, followed by a disci-
plined pack of human warriors, were hacking through the skaven
warriors towards the hulking bodyguard of Izak Grottle. In his
trance state, Thanquol could see the roaring rat-ogres - and the
appalled look on the face of his henchling Lurk as he contemplated
the prospect of imminent violence. He saw the mad eyes of Vile-
broth Null glaring into space as if he sensed the presence of some
disembodied watcher. It looked very much to the grey seer like his
plan was working and the interfering twosome were about to
destroy his bitterest rivals.
Good, he thought, let them! Thanquol would brook no others
claiming an unfair portion of his glory.
He saw Heskit One Eye bark instructions to his jezzail-equipped
bodyguards and saw the long-barrelled rifle swing to bear on the
dwarf. No! No, Thanquol thought furiously. None of that! With an
almost imperceptible flicker of his thoughts, he touched the
sniper's mind. Its fingers curled on the trigger but its warpstone
bullet went wild, smashing into the skull of a rat-ogre, almost
killing the brainless beast. The thing roared and went wild, surging
forward into the skaven troops from the rear, killing as it went.
Thanquol felt dizzy and realised that he was losing himself in
his spell. His power was bleeding away and, if he intended to
accomplish what he wanted, he had better do it soon. With a
wrench he sent his spirit soaring back towards the castle. He fun-
nelled it into the link with the scrying stone and looked out once
more on Chang Squik. Suddenly, with a snap, he was back in his
own body again and the words of the spell were tumbling from his
mouth.
He concentrated with all his might, bringing to bear all the
relentless discipline of his many years as a grey seer and the spell
swiftly returned to his control. In the air before him, the dark cloud
shimmered and parted, revealing a rift in space running from the
point just in front of where Thanquol stood to the ground around
Chang Squik's scrying crystal.
'Quick! Quick! Forward!' he shouted to his Stormvermin guard.
They walked forward into the black cloud, shimmered and van-
ished to reappear - Thanquol most earnestly hoped! - in the very
heart of the breeder Emmanuelle's palace.
Ahead of them, Felix could see the rat-ogres. They loomed head and
shoulders above the crowd, monstrous creatures, man-shaped but
with the heads of immense rabid rats. Vast boils erupted through
their mangy fur. The stigmata of a variety of foul mutations marred
their flesh. Each had paws the size of shovels which ended in claws
like daggers. Huge tusk-like fangs dripping with saliva filled their
mouths. Their bellows were audible even over the din of battle.
At the sight of them, Felix felt the urge to halt and flee. He could
tell the mercenaries following him felt the same way. The momen-
tum of their charge was dissipating as they contemplated the
horrific appearance of their foes. Only Gotrek showed no fear. He
ploughed onward, unwilling or unable to be bothered by the fear-
some nature of his foes. The rat-ogres were no more troubled by the
Trollslayer's arrival than he was by theirs. With an ear-shattering
roar, they charged rabidly to meet him.
It seemed unlikely to Felix that anything could survive the mad
rush of such huge creatures. It was like expecting someone to be
able to withstand the charge of a herd of elephants. Nothing should
have been able to withstand the onslaught of that huge mass of
muscle and teeth and claws. For a moment, all heads turned and
even the skaven stopped their relentless advance to watch.
Completely undaunted by the fact his opponents were twice
his size, Gotrek came on. His axe flashed, glowing red in the lurid
blaze of the burning buildings, and one of the rat-ogres tumbled
backwards, its leg chopped off at the knee. As it fell the Slayer's
axe slashed back again and severed its arm. Clutching at the
bloody stump with its good paw, the creature rolled over on the
ground, writhing and shrieking.
Another of the immense creatures reached out and made a grab
for the dwarf. Its razor-like talons bit into his ruddy flesh. Bloody
droplets appeared on Gotrek's shoulder as the mighty beast raised
him high above its head. It opened its huge jaws to the fullest exten-
sion as if intending to drop the Slayer in and devour him in one
bite. Gotrek brought his axe crashing down. Powered by all the awe-
some strength of the Slayer's mighty arm, it smashed the rat-ogre's
head in two. Blood, brains and teeth exploded everywhere. The
Slayer went flying backwards through the air, propelled skyward by
the reflex action of the rat-ogre's death spasm.
Seeing the remaining rat-ogres begin their advance towards
Gotrek's recumbent form, Felix mustered all his courage and
shouted: 'Charge! Charge! Let's send these foul vermin back to the
hell that spawned them.'
Not daring to look back over his shoulder to see if anyone was
following him, he raced forward into the fray.
Chang Squik watched in amazement as the air in front of him
shimmered. For a moment, it appeared like a small, bright hole had
been punched in the very fabric of the world. Through that hole
leaked a vile black gas which smelled of warpstone and dark magic.
Even as the assassin watched, the cloud expanded and shimmered
until it stood higher than any skaven. Then the cloud itself parted
to reveal a gateway joining the privy in which Chang Squik stood to
the place where the grey seer was.
Chang Squik heard a sudden noise behind him and span around
to see an ornately garbed human enter the privy, fumbling with his
codpiece as if he intended to make water. The human reeked of
alcohol. He paused in amazement and looked at the skulking
skaven, then shook his head as if to clear it.
'I say,' he said. That's a ruddy good costume!'
Then his eyes widened further as he noticed the ranks of storm
vermin starting to pour through Thanquol's sorcerous gateway. He
opened his mouth and had just time for one shriek of warning
before Chang Squik's throwing knife buried itself in his heart.
More and more skaven warriors flowed into the chamber, burst-
ing out from the privy and into the corridors of the palace.
Felix ducked, threw himself flat, and rolled under a blow that
would have taken his head off, had it connected. Up close the rat-
ogres were, if anything, even more frightening to behold. Their
muscles were like the cables used to moor ships and they looked as
if they could smash through a stone wall with little effort. The crea-
ture's massive tail lashed through the air with a crack like a whip.
Worse yet was the smell, an awful combination of animal reek, wet
fur, and warpstone. It reminded Felix of old and very sour cheese
but was infinitely stronger, and threatened to bring tears to his eyes.
He rolled to one side as a fist the size of his head smashed into
the ground where he had been. He kicked out at the rat-ogre's leg,
hoping to unbalance it, but he might as well have been kicking a
tree trunk. Hot saliva dribbled from the thing's mouth and landed
on his hand. Felix fought down the urge to flinch and kept moving,
knowing that his life depended on it.
Mad triumph appeared in the monster's small beady eyes. It opened
its jaws and bellowed so loudly that Felix thought he would go deaf.
The creature reached for him, and from his prone position Felix
lashed out with his blade and caught it across the knuckles with the
razor-sharp edge. The rat-ogre's eyes went wide in surprise at the pain.
Whimpering like a child, it pulled its hand back to its mouth to lick the
wound. Taking advantage of its distraction, Felix half rose and stabbed
upwards, driving the point of the sword right into the rat-ogre's groin.
The creature gave a shriek like the whistle of a steam-tank and
reached down to touch its severed nether parts. Felix drove the point of
his blade into the thing's opened jaws, pushing it right through the
roof of the mouth and into its tiny malformed brain. The light went
out of its eyes as it died instantly. Felix felt a momentary surge of tri-
umph - which faded almost instantly as he realised that the rat-ogre's
corpse was going to topple on him.
Felix sprang hastily to one side as the monstrous form crashed to the
ground like a felled tree. Pausing to catch his breath a moment, he
looked around. The last of the rat-ogres was going down, the merce-
naries swarming over it like rats over a terrier, but the victory had been
won at awful cost. Many human corpses covered the ground for every
rat-ogre which had fallen. It looked like only he and Gotrek had bested
one of the beasts in single combat.
Still, briefly and temporarily though it might turn out to be, it
looked like the tide of battle had turned in their favour. The skaven
leaders, including the grossly fat monster which had ordered the rat-
ogres to attack, were fleeing backwards to regroup.
More and more people were massing in the streets to fight off the
invaders. In the distance, Felix could hear the sound of horns and
drums as the small army which surrounded the Noble Quarter began
to advance down into the city. He wished he had some idea of how the
battle was going. In the raging maelstrom of conflict it was difficult to
say. They had won a victory here but it was all too possible that the
skaven were triumphant in every other part of the city. Perhaps now
would be a good time to make a run for it, he thought.
Then he saw the Trollslayer. Gotrek marched through the crowd
towards him. A terrible grin revealed his missing teeth. Mad battle lust
filled his one good eye.
'You brought a good fight with you, manling,' he said.
Felix nodded - and then remembered how this had all started. He
fumbled within his tunic to retrieve the scrap of parchment, then
slowly unrolled it to read its message.
*  *  *
Grey Seer Thanquol watched the last of his troops pass through the
gateway and then stepped through himself. He felt a sense of relief
as the mystic portal closed automatically behind him. Even for a
grey seer of Thanquol's awesome powers, holding it open while
hundreds of stormvermin poured through had been a terrible
strain.
Now he could relax and watch his plan unfold before him. His
tail lashed in anticipation of his triumph. Victory was within reach!
Soon he would hold the human rulers hostage and command them
to order their troops to surrender on pain of most hideous death. If
they refused - which Thanquol rather hoped they would - he
would make an example of some of them until they did agree. He
was looking forward to some sport. Then the twitching of his nos-
trils warned him that something odd was happening, and he
squinted around the chamber to confirm his suspicions.
Yes, it was true. Even Thanquol's warpstone addled senses could
tell that this room was the wrong size, and it did not smell like a
great hallway. It smelled like a midden. Thanquol stuck his head
through the door. He looked into a corridor in which stormver-
min milled in confusion. This was not the hallway they had been
told to expect. He could see their clawleader studying his map
with a look of puzzlement on his face. The awful truth dawned on
Thanquol: that incompetent buffoon Chang Squik had placed his
scrying crystal in the wrong place!
Thanquol bared his fangs in a ferocious snarl. It was just as well
for the Clan Eshin assassin that he was not in sight, thought
Thanquol. The grey seer swore that when he found Squik he would
flay his flesh from his bones using the darkest magic that he could
command.
Warpstone-driven euphoria and drugged rage warred in
Thanquol's mind as he stalked out into the corridor to search for his
goal.
Felix looked down at the parchment. It was hard to tell in the
gloom but the writing looked somehow different, smaller, neater,
more precise. Not that it mattered right now, as Felix read in horror
what it had to say:
Hoomans! the traitor Grey Sere Thanquol will invade the palaz
this nite and kapture the breeder Eeman-yoo-ell and all yore pack
leeders! Yoo must stop him or yore city will fall.
Also this Thanquol is a very powerful sorcerur and will yoose
his eevil majik to stop yoo. He must die-die or no hooman in yore
city wil he safe.
Felix looked down at Gotrek then passed him the note. 'Well?' he
said.
'Well what, manling?'
'Do we go to the palace and rescue our noble rulers from this
skaven menace?'
'They're your rulers, manling, not mine!'
'I think this grey seer is the thing we encountered in von Hal-
stadt's house. The rat-man which got away. I think it might be
behind this whole invasion.'
'Then killing it would be a great deed - and dying in the attempt
would be a mighty doom!' Gotrek rumbled.
'Only one problem, then: we're going to have to fight our way
through the city to get there!'
'Where's the problem in that?'
'Who knows how many rat-men stand in our way?'
Felix wracked his brain for a way out of this dilemma. It would
take an army to fight its way across the city.
In a flash of inspiration worthy of a Detlef Sierck hero, the
answer came to him.
•
Lurk Snitchtongue cowered in the shadow of Izak Grottle. The
huge Clan Moulder packmaster looked at him hungrily. He still
seemed to be in a state of shock from watching the defeat of his
prized rat-ogres.
'I thought you said the human and the dwarf had received the
message and were on their way to... intercede with Grey Seer
Thanquol.'
The message was delivered, master of Moulders! I cannot be
held responsible for what happens next. Maybe they were caught up
in the fighting.'
'Maybe! Maybe! All of this has left us exposed, though. Very
exposed. We must find another skaven force quickly or return to the
safety of the sewers.'
'Yes, yes, most perceptive of planners.'
'Have you seen Heskit One Eye or Vilebroth Null?'
'Not since we were attacked, greatest of gorgers.'
A pity. Well, let us be on our way!'
'At once.'
Filled with warpstone-fuelled rage, Thanquol stalked the corridors
of the palace. The damnable place was huge and it was as much a
maze as anything he made his pet humans run through. His care-
fully contrived plan had fallen apart because of the incompetence
of Chang Squik. It had relied on speed, surprise and the fury of the
skaven assault to overwhelm the defence. Now his stormvermin
were reduced to racing through the corridors and fighting skir-
mishes with groups of sentries. It was only a matter of time before
the humans realised what was going on, concentrated their forces,
and began to fight back. Thanquol still expected a victory under
those circumstances. His warriors were many and bold, but there
was always the possibility that something might happen to tip the
odds against them. Thanquol would have much preferred a sudden
overwhelming victory, not this period of anger and doubt.
Heskit One Eye chittered in excitement. Once again he watched the
warpfire throwers sweep through the buildings. These huge human
structures burned well. Their wooden supports caught fire easily,
and the soft stone and brick from which they were made melted in
the fierce heat of the warpflames.
Heskit had thought it politic to separate from the others when
his jezzail team had accidentally shot one of Izak Grottle's rat-ogres.
It was an accident, Heskit knew, but the skaven of Clan Moulder
were insanely suspicious. Heskit had no desire to have Izak Grottle
'accidentally' stab him in the back so he had led his troops away
from the main battle to continue spreading destruction.
And how glad he was that he had done so. There was something
truly enthralling about watching the machineries of destruction at
work, of feeling the heat and flames his warriors had caused warm
his face and watching these giant structures tumble down.
Heskit stared upwards for a long time, watching the tenement
collapse. It was only at the very last moment that he realised that
tons of brick and blazing wood were crashing down right on top of
him. And by then, it was far too late for him to escape.
Felix leapt on to the back of the plague cart. Bodies squelched
under his feet. The stink was appalling. He really would have pre-
ferred to stand somewhere else but this was the only way he could
get the attention of the crowd.
'Citizens of Nuln!' he bellowed in the orator's voice he had not
used since the Window Tax riots. 'Listen to me!'
A few heads turned in his direction. Most of the others were too
busy hacking at skaven corpses or shouting gleefully at their neigh-
bours.
'Citizens of Nuln! Skaven slayers!' he shouted. A few more peo-
ple looked at him. They began to tug their neighbour's arms and
point in his direction. Slowly but surely Felix felt the attention of
the crowd turn on him. Slowly but surely, the crowd fell silent.
These people had seen him and Gotrek slay rat-ogres. They had
also seen them lead the charge into battle. These people were lead-
erless and in need of direction. Felix thought he could provide
them with both.
'Citizens of Nuln! The skaven have attacked your great city. They
have burned your homes. They have killed your loved ones. They
have brought madness and plague to your streets.'
Felix saw that he had them now. All eyes in the crowd were riv-
eted to him. He could sense the crowd's anger and hatred and fear,
and he could sense that he had given it a focus. He felt a sudden
thrill at the power he held. He wet his lips and continued to speak,
knowing that he must sway them to the course he wanted now or
he would lose them.
'You have killed many skaven. You have seen their monsters fall.
You have seen their vile weapons fail. Victory is within your grasp.
Are you ready to kill more skaven?'
'Yes!' cried a few of the crowd. Many still looked uncertain. For
the most part they were not warriors, just ordinary people suddenly
thrown into a situation they did not truly understand.
'Are you ready to drive the skaven from your city? For if you do
not, they will return and carry you away as slaves! '
Felix had no idea whether this was true or not, but it was what
they had done in the past and it sounded good. More to the point,
it sounded frightening. More voices shouted: 'Yes.'
'Are you ready to slaughter these monsters without mercy? For
rest assured, if you do not, they will slaughter you!'
'Yes!' roared the whole crowd in a frenzy of rage and fear.
'Then follow me! To the palace! Where the chief of all this foul
breed even now threatens the life of your rightful ruler!'
Felix leapt down from the cart and landed on the cobbled street.
Hands stretched out from the crowd to pat him on the back. More
still shouted their support. He saw Heinz and the surviving merce-
naries give him the thumbs up. He looked down at Gotrek; even
the dwarf looked pleased. 'Let's go,' Felix said and they broke into
a run.
As one, the crowd followed them through the burning streets of
the city.
Chang Squik drew his long black cloak in front of his face and
stalked forward, blade in hand. He kept to the shadows, moving
quietly on the balls of his feet, ready to strike in any direction at
the slightest provocation.
In the dim distance he could still hear the sound of fighting.
From up ahead, he could hear the strange scraping noise that
humans called 'music'. He emerged onto a balcony and blinked his
eyes, momentarily dazzled.
He stood looking down upon a huge chamber. The vaulted ceil-
ing above him was painted with an enormous picture of the human
gods looking down benevolently. Enormous chandeliers, each
holding hundreds of candles, provided dazzling illumination.
Down below an orchestra played and many gowned breeders and a
few costumed males stood at ease, drinking and eating happily. The
smell of food made Squik's nostrils twitch and drew his attention to
the tables below. They groaned beneath the weight of roasted fowl
and pig. Platters of cheese and bread and all manner of savouries
were there. So much for starving the city, thought the Eshin assas-
sin! Then he realised that maybe the ordinary people were starving,
but the rulers had preserved all these dainties for themselves. In
this, then, the humans were not too different from skaven, he
decided - then started at the sound of footsteps on the balcony
behind him.
Two figures, a male and a breeder, had emerged onto the balcony
behind him. Their clothing was in a state of disarray and it looked
odd even for humans. The man was garbed as a shepherd in some
sort of tunic. He carried pan pipes, and a golden mask shaped to
have small horns like a goat's covered his face. The woman, too, was
masked but she was dressed in some sort of dancer's costume, with
diamond-patterned tights, a tricorned hat and a domino mask.
They stared at him and to his surprise emitted the strange wheezing
sound that humans called laughter. They stank of alcohol.
Chang Squik was so surprised that he paused in the middle of his
death stroke. He had intended to strike them down and withdraw
into the shadowy corridors. 'I say, what a super costume!' the man
said.
'Absolutely wonderful,' the woman agreed. She bent over and
tugged at Squik's tail. 'So realistic.'
Squik had no idea what they were saying. He understood no
words of their odd rumbling language but it was starting to filter
into his brain that these people were wearing some sort of costume,
like high ranldng skaven performing a religious rite. And they
appeared to have mistaken him for one of them.
Was it possible that these people were so drunk and so uncar-
ing that they did not realise that there was a skaven invasion going
on outside? To his astonishment Chang Squik realised that it must
be so. Worse, he could see that all eyes down below were on them.
He considered pushing the pair off the balcony and ducking back
into the shadows but that meant going back into corridors filled
with fighting stormvermin and an angry Thanquol. Another plan
struck him. Nodding politely to the two revellers, he put away his
blade, walked down the stairs and into the crowds of masked and
disguised humans.
He helped himself to a savoury from a tray carried by a passing
waiter, picked up a goblet of wine, and strolled through the hall,
nodding left and right to those he passed. Perhaps if he could find
the breeder, Emmanuelle, he might yet redeem himself in the eyes
of Grey Seer Thanquol.
Vilebroth Null looked up in astonishment at the onrushing
horde of humans. Where had they all come from? How had they
mustered such a huge force so suddenly? Had Grey Seer Thanquol
underestimated their numbers? Certainly that was possible and, if
so, just another example of the grey seer's incompetence. Not that
it would make any difference if he did not get out of their way.
He had spent the night since the invasion force had erupted
from the sewer wandering lost through the twisting maze of alleys
and lanes, killing any humans he encountered, and trying to
locate Izak Grottle and the others. He cursed the initial blind rush
which had separated them all. Now he was left to face this horde
of humans without any sort of bodyguard.
He looked up and realised that he recognised the leaders of the
charge - and what was worse, they recognised him! It was the
human and the dwarf who had interrupted his ritual and
destroyed the Cauldron of a Thousand Poxes. For a moment, a
vast righteous anger swept through Vilebroth Null. Almost with-
out thinking, he summoned his powers and an eerie green light
swept into being around his head and paws. He mumbled the
chant that would summon destructive spirits of disease to smite
his foes.
The humans did not even slow their headlong rush. Vilebroth
Null realised that they could not. The ones at the back were push-
ing the ones at the front of the herd forward. If the leaders slowed
they would be trampled. He kept chanting, desperate now to sum-
mon the powers which would protect him, knowing that most
likely it was already too late. The humans were upon him.
The last thing Vilebroth Null saw was a huge axe descending
towards his skull.
* * *
Felix shuddered. He had recognised the green-robed rat-man in
the last seconds before the crowd had trampled it. It was the
plague priest from the cemetery. And Felix was glad that it was
dead.
He was warm now, sweating from exertion and the heat of the
blazing buildings which surrounded them. He tried to ignore the
screams of those trapped within and focus on taking vengeance on
those responsible. Somewhere off in the distance he heard a crash-
ing sound. A pillar of sparks rose skyward as a tenement collapsed.
Felix knew that if anyone survived this, they would have their work
cut out for them rebuilding the city. This was as bad as the Great
Fire of Altdorf.
They hit the slopes around the palace, and Felix noticed that
many of the buildings here were intact. They were like his brother's
house, small fortresses as well as mansions. Ahead of them was a
force clad in the black tabards of the Nuln city guard. They had their
halberds raised to repel a charge but lowered them confused when
they saw that the mob were human, rather than rat-men.
'Skaven!' he shouted. There are skaven in the palace!'
He did not know whether the captain of the guard believed him
or not, but he did not have much choice. If his men stood there
much longer they would either have to use their weapons on their
fellow citizens or be trampled under foot. The captain made a snap
decision: he barked an order and his men stood aside. Felix could
see that the great gate of the palace was still open. It must have been
left that way to allow the coaches of the guests to enter, Felix
decided.
He rushed onwards, praying that they were in time to save
Countess Emmanuelle.
Drexler turned to look in the direction of the scream. Suddenly
the balcony seethed with huge, black armoured skaven. Those were
not costumes, he could tell immediately. These were the real thing.
Monstrous, man-sized, anthropomorphic rats armed with huge
scimitars and bearing round shields inscribed with the sigil of their
evil god.
He saw a few of the guards, elite troops, move to interpose them-
selves between the guests and the skaven. They were cut down
swiftly by the disciplined phalanx as it poured down the stairs and
into the room. Slowly the orchestra stopped playing. The notes
faded out into discordant echoes. Screaming guests in fancy cos-
tumes were herded towards the great throne dais by massive
snarling rat-men.
Drexler wondered if he should risk a spell, but decided against it.
There were too many skaven for him to affect them all. Where were
the guards, he wondered? Where were all the men who had gone to
the battlements to look at the fire?
Then he sensed the presence of terrible magical energy. Looking
up he saw a huge, horned, grey-furred rat-man descending the
stairs. It looked like an evil god come to bring doom to all
mankind.
Thanquol strode forward across the corpses of the dead humans.
At last, from up ahead he could hear a gratifying number of
screams. It seemed that his stormvermin had discovered the Great
Hall at last, and that the human leaders were finally within his
grasp. Filled with a tremendous sense of his inevitable righteous tri-
umph, the grey seer advanced to victory!
Felix led the charge into the courtyard. Looking up, he saw a strug-
gle taking place on the battlements.
'Quick!' he shouted to Heinz. 'Scour the battlements! Kill any
skaven you find!'
'Right-o, young Felix,' Heinz said, rushing towards the steps with
the mercenaries in tow. 'Follow me, lads!'
Felix glanced around at the mob pouring into the courtyard.
They looked ferocious, ready to kill anything they saw. A number of
them began to race after Heinz.
'Where to now, manling?' Gotrek asked. 'I want to get to grips
with that rat-man wizard. My axe thirsts for more blood!'
Good question, thought Felix, wishing he had an answer. Think,
he urged himself. Where is the logical place to go? The grey seer
wanted to capture Emmanuelle. Tonight he knew from Drexler a
great ball was taking place. The logical place for the countess to be
was the ballroom that Ostwald and he had passed through the first
time he had visited the palace. Now, if only he could remember the
way there!
'Follow me!' he shouted, trying to make his voice as confident as
possible.
Thanquol paused at the head of the stairs to survey the great ball-
room. He wanted to give the pitiful humans the chance to
appreciate the full awful majesty of their conquerors. He wanted to
savour his moment of ultimate triumph.
All eyes turned to look at him. He could tell the humans were
impressed by his dignity and his presence. They always were. The
majestic form of a grey seer always inspired respect and admira-
tion in equal parts from all who saw him. He glanced at the crowd
and looked around to see if he could find his chosen prey.
In truth, he had expected to be able to tell her by the elaborate
nature of her costume, and by the fact that she wore a crown, but
he could see that all the humans present were garbed in strange
disguises, almost as if they had intended to thwart him. Well,
well, he thought, they would see that a grey seer was not so eas-
ily balked. He singled out one of the human males, a man garbed
like some primitive tribesman.
'You, man-thing! Where is your chief breeder? Answer me!
Quick! Quick! ' Thanquol asked in his best Reikspiel.
'I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about, old man,'
came the reply. Sweat dribbled down the man's face. Thanquol
blasted him with a surge of pure magical power. Women's screams
filled the air as the snipped and blackened skeleton of his victim fell
to the floor. Thanquol selected another victim, a woman dressed like
one of the humans' goddesses.
'You! Tell me where is the chief breeder? Answer! Now! Now!'
The woman looked at him blankly. 'What is a breeder?' she
asked. Thanquol's answer was to blast her with magic as well.
Another charred corpse tumbled to the floor. Thanquol selected a
man very cunningly disguised as a Clan Eshin assassin.
'You! The chief breeder! Where?!' Thanquol bellowed. The dis-
guised assassin turned, its tail twitching remarkably like a real
skaven.
'No, master! Don't blast me!' it cried in fluent skaven. Remark-
able, thought Thanquol. A human who speaks our language! Then
he realised that this was no human. It was that damnable Chang
Squik, hiding himself among the humans. Thanquol looked at the
assassin and licked his lips, thinking of how the assassin's folly had
almost cost Thanquol his triumph, remembering all the other fail-
ures Chang Squik had been responsible for.
This was perfect, thought Thanquol. If anybody ever asked, he
could claim that it was all a terrible error. He summoned all of his
powers. Chang Squik screamed most satisfactorily as dark magic
consumed his body.
Thanquol gloated for a brief but joyous moment, then picked
out another human. 'You! Where is the chief breeder? Answer!
Quick-quick! Or your miserable life is forfeit!'
'But I don't know what a breeder is,' whimpered the fat man
garbed as a huge pink rabbit. Thanquol shrugged and blasted him.
Yet more bones clattered onto the marble floor.
It began to occur to Thanquol, even through the haze of warp-
stone clouding his mind, that there was something wrong with his
strategy. The humans did not quite seem to understand what he was
getting at. What could it be? Where were their feeble minds going
astray? He had asked for their chief breeder, after all. Perhaps if he
asked for her by name? He signalled out a cringing breeder, and
pointed one talon at her.
'You! You! Are you the chief breeder Emmanuelle?'
The breeder was obviously too overwhelmed by the sheer
majesty of Thanquol's presence to speak. He blasted her as a lesson
to the others that they should reply when he asked a question. He
selected another male next, hoping that it would be slightly less wit-
less than the breeder.
'You - where is the chief breeder Emmanuelle?' The male shook
its head defiantly.
'I will never tell you. I have sworn to serve the Elector Countess
wi-'
Thanquol yawned and unleashed another blast of dark magic
before the human could finish its speech. He so hated it when they
became contrary. His specimens back home in Skavenblight could
be the same way sometimes, particularly after he took their breed-
ers and runts away to experiment on. An amazing race in some ways
certainly, he thought, but so stupid.
Out of the corner of his eye, Thanquol caught sight of two
human breeders muttering to each other. Slowly he swung his burn-
ing gaze towards them. As one the breeders straightened and one of
them strode towards him. She pulled off her mask to reveal a pale
but determined face.
'I believe you are looking for me,' she said defiantly. 'I am Elector
Countess Emmanuelle!'
Thanquol was almost disappointed. The warpstone power still
surged within him, and he had been enjoying using it. There was
nothing quite like the thrill of blasting lesser beings to bits, unless
it was the sense of power doing just that gave one.
'Good! Good!' Thanquol said. 'You will order your troops to sur-
render immediately and I will let you live. Fail to do so and.
Drexler shuddered as he watched the monstrous horned skaven
stride through the crowd. Just the sight of it filled him with fear. It
wasn't the red, glowing eyes or the way its fur bristled that scared
him. It was the power it so obviously carried within it.
Drexler's mystically attuned senses could see that the thing fairly
bristled with dark magical energy. He was enough of a sorcerer
himself to see that there was something deeply unnatural about it.
No living creature should be able to wield or contain such power
without suffering the consequences. At the very least, it should go
mad. At most it might explode, blown apart by the vast energy roil-
ing within its body.
Where could it have acquired such power, Drexler wondered?
The only possible source of so much energy was said to be pure
warpstone. Could the creature possibly be consuming the stuff?
Such a supposition beggared belief.
Perhaps the creature had not escaped its use unscathed. Its
slurred speech and stumbling, jerky movements certainly hinted
that something was wrong with it. The way its whiskers quivered
and its head twitched made it look as if it were in the terminal stage
of some fatal addiction. Yes, the creature was mad. No doubt about
it. The way it had so casually blasted apart anyone who did not
answer its questions to its satisfaction stated that fact clearly. The
question now was what was he, Drexler, going to do about it?
He was appalled by his own cowardice. Each time the creature
had gathered its dark powers, he had sensed it. He could have at
least tried to work a counter-spell but he had not. He had been too
overcome by the horror of the thing's appearance and the thought
of what might happen to him if he had intervened. He felt sure that
he would lose any mystical duel with this rat-man and that attract-
ing its attention would be fatal. Even if he could somehow hold the
skaven mage in check, its black-armoured lackeys filled the room.
At a word from it, they would surely cut him down with those cruel
swords.
So he had done nothing and half a dozen people had died. He
was proud of what Baron Blucher had done, the way the man had
defied the skaven before he died. Why could he not summon such
courage? The healer in him was appalled that he had done nothing
to prevent such loss of life. Now the countess herself stood in peril,
willing to give her own life to spare her subjects. Drexler vowed that
this time, he would intervene, if the skaven attacked.
There would be no more magical killings if he could help it.
'I will do no such thing,' Countess Emmanuelle said shakily. 'I
would rather die than order my troops to surrender to you foul ver-
min.'
'Foolish breeder - that is just what you will do, if you defy me!'
Thanquol said. He raised his paw and dark magical energy played
around it menacingly. The breeder flinched slightly, but did not
move or open her mouth. Thanquol wondered if there was some
way around this impasse. Perhaps if he ordered some of the
humans tortured before her eyes she would weaken. Thanquol's
experiments had led him to believe such a course would often
work. Yes, that was it!
Then from somewhere around him in the ballroom, he sensed
the slow build-up of magical energies. They were not skaven mag-
ical energies either. He heard footsteps rushing closer too, even as
he turned his head to seek their source.
'Well, well, what have we here?' a harsh grating voice said like
two great boulders rubbing together, cutting like a knife to the
very core of Thanquol's being. 'It looks like we're just in time to
kill some rats.'
Thanquol quelled the urge to squirt the musk of fear. He recog-
nised that harsh, flinty growl! The grey seer jerked his head to one
side just to confirm his worst fears, and he saw that they were true.
Standing in the entrance to the chamber were the dwarf Gurnisson
and the human Jaeger, and behind them was a teeming mass of
human troops.
Thanquol howled in frustration and rage. He reached deep into
his corrupt soul and hurled all his lethal power at his enemies in
one mighty blast.
Felix prepared himself to spring to one side as he saw the mid-
night black thunderbolt gather around the grey seer's paw. The
nimbus of evil mystical power around the rat-man's head was so
bright that it was almost impossible to look at. Gotrek held his
ground unflinchingly, seemingly totally unafraid, as the enormous
blast of destructive power was suddenly unleashed directly at him.
There was a mighty flash and a crackling, booming noise as of
thunder unleashed directly overhead. The air was filled with the
burnt-metal reek of ozone. Felix was vaguely aware that two bolts
of energy had leapt from the grey seer's paws. One was aimed at
him. One was aimed at Gotrek. He closed his eyes, fully expecting
to die.
Instead of the anticipated blast of incredible pain, he felt noth-
ing except a mild tingling on his flesh and his hair starting to
stand on end. He opened his eyes and saw that both he and the
Trollslayer were enveloped in a golden field of energy. Long
golden lines raced from the aura that surrounded them back to the
hands of Doctor Drexler. Felix could see the look of strain on the
doctor's face. Grateful as he was to the physician for saving them,
he knew that the doctor could not long stand against the storm of
magical power which surrounded them.
'Is that the best you can do?' Gotrek bellowed. 'Rat-man, your
life is over!'
The Slayer charged through the corona of coruscating energy.
Felix charged right beside him.
No! No! Grey Seer Thanquol thought in panic as he saw his two
enemies racing towards him. This was not happening! How could
this be? How could this abominable pair appear to thwart him in
his hour of triumph? What evil deity protected them, and kept them
alive to interfere in his plans time after time? He bared his lips in a
snarl and continued to unleash his destructive energies against the
swirling golden shield which stood between the pair and destruc-
tion. He could feel it start to give way under the relentless pressure
of his magical energies.
Unfortunately it was not giving way quickly enough. At the rate
the human and the dwarf were closing the distance between them,
they would reach Thanquol before he could shred their flesh from
their bones. He snarled a curse, and reined in his spell, knowing
that something other than magic was needed now.
'Quick! Quick!' he ordered his stormvermin. 'Kill them! Now!
Now!'
With visible reluctance, the stormvermin moved to the attack.
They had heard of this pair. Tales of the destruction they had
wreaked among skaven were legend among the army assaulting
Nuln. Their very presence was demoralising to Thanquol's troops.
The way the dwarf decapitated the experienced clawleader as if he
were a mere puppy did nothing to reassure the skaven. Nor did the
vast howling tide of angry humans flowing into the ballroom.
Thanquol sensed that the morale of his force was mere moments
from breaking.
Swiftly he weighed the odds of victory, and saw that his moment
had passed, and that triumph had slipped through his talons. Now
it was a case of measuring his chances of survival. If he left now,
while his troops still slowed down the pursuit, Thanquol realised he
might reach the privy. Once there he could use the scrying stone to
create a gate back to the sewers. Of course, now with his power at a
low ebb, he would not have the strength to hold it open for all his
warriors. In fact, he doubted that more than one solitary skaven
would escape through it.
Still, he knew the genius of Thanquol must be preserved. On
another day, he would return and take his revenge.
'Forward, my brave stormvermin, to inevitable victory!'
Thanquol shouted, before he turned tail and ran with all his might.
He did not need his grey seer's intuition to tell him that the slaugh-
ter behind him was going to be one-sided and merciless.
'So it was that the skaven were driven forth from the
city, although at great, terrible cost in lives and dam-
age to property. I had thought to rest and catch my
breath after our exertions but it was not to be. The hand
of doom reached out for my companion. And so began a
journey that was to end at the furthest and most gods-
forsaken reaches of the world...'
— From My Travels With Gotrek, Vol. III,
by Herr Felix Jaeger (Altdorf Press, 2505)
EPILOGUE
Felix sat in his favourite chair in the Blind Pig and finished inscrib-
ing the notes in his journal. He would leave this book in storage
with Otto until such a time as he returned to claim it. If ever he did
get round to writing the tale of the Trollslayer's heroic doom, it
might prove invaluable.
From outside he could hear the sound of hammers. The builders
had been at work for weeks now, trying to restore the battle-scarred
city to its former glory. Felix knew that it would be many years
before Nuln recovered fully, if it ever did. Still, he was not hugely
troubled. Things had ended well, more or less.
The countess had been grateful, but there was not much she
could do to reward two criminals wanted by the authorities in Alt-
dorf without antagonising the Emperor himself. There had been
many protestations of gratitude and sweet smiles of thanks, but
nothing more. Felix did not care. He was just glad to have avoided
being thrown into prison, just as he was glad to have survived the
night of conflict which had followed the storming of the palace.
He still shivered to think of the savage batdes which had been
fought in the streets between man and skaven. It had taken all night
and most of the rest of the following day to clear the city, and even
after it was done most people had remained awake the following
night, not quite able to believe they were safe. It had taken many
more days of hunting afterwards to winlde the skaven out of all
their hiding places, and he was still not sure that the sewers were
entirely free of them.
On the other hand, the plague had abated. Perhaps the great fire
had cleansed the city - or maybe it had simply claimed all the lives
it was capable of taking. Drexler claimed that this was often the way
with plagues. It had vanished now. No more deaths were reported.
No more people had been stricken.
And for a wonder, the great plague of rats had ended too. For
days, more and more of them had appeared but they seemed
weaker, and bore the stigma of mutations, as if something had gone
wrong with them before even they were born. Many of the later gen-
erations had been still-born. It was as if they had been created with
some deliberate flaw by the skaven. Perhaps they had been intended
to scourge the city and then die out, leaving the skaven free to claim
everything. It was an idea of such devilish cunning that it made
Felix shiver. Were the rat-men really capable of such a thing? Or had
it all been merely an accident?
Somewhere in the distance, temple bells rang. Of course, the
priests were claiming that their particular gods had intervened to
save Nuln. Such was their way. Felix had seen precious little evi-
dence that the immortal ones had acted to preserve Nuln at all, but
who was he to say? Perhaps they had been there, invisibly shielding
the folk, as Drexler claimed. Certainly Felix thought that Gotrek and
himself had been very lucky, and perhaps that was the favour of the
gods.
The gods had spared others. Otto and his wife were safe, pros-
pering even. As his brother had predicted, there was a great demand
for all manner of stuff for use in the reconstruction and Jaegers of
Altdorf were helping provide it.
Drexler had recovered almost fully from his sorcerous battle with
the grey seer. Felix had been to see him several times since the fate-
ful night, and the man looked as calm and cheerful as ever. One
time, he had even encountered Ostwald at the doctor's townhouse.
The spymaster had treated Felix with a deference close to hero wor-
ship, which Felix had found embarrassing.
Heinz and most of the mercenaries were well. The old innkeeper
had taken a nasty knock on the head, and his head was swathed in
so many bandages that he looked like an Arab, but he was still there
behind the bar, pulling pints.
Felix had no idea where Elissa was. He had not seen her or Hans
since the day before the battle, and no one he knew had any knowl-
edge of her whereabouts. He sincerely hoped she was well and had
escaped back to her home village. He still missed her.
They never found the skaven grey seer, despite searching the
palace from top to bottom. All that the court magicians had found
were some strange magical resonances in the privy. It was assumed
that Thanquol had used magic to effect his escape.
For the most part, the citizens were happy. They had survived and
were rebuilding. In any case life went on as usual and Felix was
looking forward to a nice long rest.
Having avoided meeting his heroic doom yet again, Gotrek had
stomped around like a bear with a sore head in the days after the
fighting finished before consoling himself with a three day long
binge of boozing and brawling. Now he sat in the corner of the
Blind Pig, nursing his hangover and bellowing for ale.
The saloon doors swung open and another dwarf came in. He
was shorter than Gotrek and lighter in build. A circlet of bright red
cloth was wrapped round his head and his beard was clipped short.
The tunic he wore was divided into red and yellow squares of
ungodly brightness. The newcomer looked around and his eyes
widened when he saw Gotrek. He strode across to the Slayer with a
purposeful step. Felix closed his journal, put down his pen and
watched with interest.
'You are Gotrek, son of Gumi, a Slayer?' the newcomer said,
speaking in Reikspiel as dwarfs often did when humans were lis-
tening. Felix knew they liked no one to hear their secret tongue.
'What if I am?' Gotrek said in his most brutish and surly fashion.
'Want to make something of it?'
'I am Nor Norrison, a bonded messenger to the clans. I have a
message for you of great importance. I have come a thousand
leagues to deliver it.'
'Well, get on with it then! I don't have all day,' Gotrek grumbled
impatiently.
'It is not a verbal message. It is written in runescript. You can
read, can't you?'
'About as well as I can punch out the teeth of messengers who
cheek me.'
The messenger produced a parchment envelope with a great
flourish. Gotrek took it and tore it open. He started to read - and as
he did so all the colour left his face. His beard bristled and his eyes
went wide.
'What is it?' Felix asked.
A mighty doom, manling. A mighty doom indeed.' He rose from
his chair and reached for his axe. 'Get your gear. We're leaving.'
'For where?'
'The ends of the earth, most likely,' Gotrek said, and could be pre-
vailed upon to say nothing more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William King was born in Stranraer, Scotland, in
1959. His short stories have appeared in The Year's
Best SF, Zenith, White Dwarf and Interzone. He is
the author of the much-loved Gotrek & Felix
adventures and the Space Wolf novels. Bill
currently lives in Prague.