The reflection of the green flames had illuminated the tunnel. The sound was deafening, the heat overpowering, and it was difficult to see what was happening because of all the thick choking smoke that rose from the abominable processes. The whole place seemed to be a bizarre amalgam of a sorcerer’s lair and a blacksmith’s forge, but magnified a hundredfold: a daemon’s workshop.
Here was where raw warpstone underwent the process of refinement. The transformation was so dangerous that they employed slave labour for the lethal operations. But not all the slaves were human, Konrad observed; amongst the labourers below there were a number of skaven.
As he glanced around, Konrad remembered the last time he had been underground like this. He had also been up against hundreds of enemies, but now the odds were far less in his favour. Varsung’s axe was no substitute for the massive double-bladed weapon with which he had wreaked such carnage amongst the troglodyte goblins.
Time had seemed frozen as he surveyed the scene which confronted him, but now the immobile seconds melted and it was again the time for fighting — and for death. That must inevitably include his own death, Konrad knew, but not until he had claimed a few more enemies.
He saw an armoured figure moving rapidly towards him along the high rocky ledge where he stood. It was armed with a sword, defended by a shield. He could tell it was human, and he raised his own shield in defence and lifted his sword. His blade clashed with that of his enemy, the sound lost in the cacophony from below. They fought.
Konrad and his opponent were evenly matched. They were both the same height, of equal weight and strength, bearing identical armament, and their combat techniques were very similar.
For every stroke that Konrad made, his enemy offered an appropriate counter-stroke, bringing up his shield in response, or else blocking the blow with his own sword. Whenever his antagonist made a strike, Konrad could anticipate and repel the attack.
He had never fought such an enemy. It seemed that they both knew the same techniques, were masters of identical tactics; it was as though they had been instructed by exactly the same tutors.
As their swords rang together, metal sliding down against metal, hilts touching, Konrad found himself staring directly into his enemy’s face. In the gloom and beneath the shaded figure’s helmet, he could not see much — except that the man’s eyes were different colours.
His left was green, his right was gold. It was like looking into a mirror…
And Konrad realized that he was fighting his double, his own image!
Somehow, the skaven had created his doppelganger. That was why every sword stroke was matched and returned — because he and his reflection were so equally balanced. The duel could last forever. They were not exact opposites, because his antagonist carried his blade in his right hand, bore his shield in the left. Yet that seemed a minor detail, and in any case, Konrad was ambidextrous with weapons.
He could have fought himself until all that defeated him was exhaustion. It seemed that his twin was stronger; his energies had not been depleted and drained by a prison of bronze. He could not win by strength, because he had less, nor by skill, because that was evenly apportioned. The only route to victory was to do something he had never done before, to adopt a completely different technique. He had no other chance.
“Who are you?” he demanded. He already knew the answer, but he needed more time, any time.
But his opponent gave him nothing. Neither time nor an answer. As Konrad parried like a fencer, then bludgeoned like a barbarian warrior, he wondered what tactic he could adopt that he had never used. He had learned so much, been taught by so many masters. What could he do that was completely against all his training, against all his double’s expectations? This was a time for thought in the midst of a deadly duel, but he could think of nothing — except nothing.
He swung his left arm out, releasing his grip and letting his shield fly off. That distracted his foe for an instant, who watched it vanish into the gloom. Then Konrad threw his sword away.
His enemy became still momentarily, sword and shield immobile, and Konrad lashed out with his right foot, catching him in the stomach and unbalancing him. He flung out his arms to try and keep himself upright. A moment later Konrad used his head as a battering ram, the helmet taking his duplicate in the midriff. Down went his twin, and he was instantly on top, kneeling above him, the poniard in his hand, plunging the blade deep into his neck.
There should have been blood. Instead, maggots poured from the wound.
He had been fighting a dead man. But the dead could die again, and this one became still — except for the hundreds of white wriggling worms that crawled from the gaping wound in the neck.
Konrad was suddenly seized from behind and dragged to his feet by two huge skaven warriors. His dagger was knocked away, his helmet torn off, Varsung’s axe wrenched from his belt. He kicked at his captors’ legs and tried to elbow himself free.
Then he felt cold steel at his throat. The weapon was held by a third figure, and Konrad leaned back so that the point of the blade would not bite into his flesh. As he did so, he recognized the weapon: it was the stiletto he had given Krysten.
A voice hissed: “Surrender!”
The sibilant syllables sounded familiar. The shape with the knife was in shadow, and Konrad could only just make out its outline, but he almost recognized the size and the way the creature stood.
“Konrad.”
Its fur was grey, and it held the stiletto in its left paw because it had no right one.
It was Heinler.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There had seemed something odd about Heinler, but now all was explained: he had not been human, he was skaven.
When Konrad had first encountered him in the mine compound, Heinler had seemed to be a man. In retrospect, his features had certain rodent traits; but now he was a true skaven, a giant rat that walked like a man. Originally, he must have transformed his appearance, or else he had used sorcery to convince Konrad that he looked human. A spell of illusion would have been simple enough, because Heinler was one of the most powerful of all skaven: he was a grey seer.
Konrad had learned of these creatures from Litzenreich. The wizard had made a point of knowing everything he could about his enemies. Grey seers were skaven who were able to transform warpstone, and the process gave them increased power. They were great magicians, the direct servants of the Thirteen Lords of Decay.
The Thirteen were the high priests and leaders of the monstrous rats. Many were rulers in their own right, governing the main centres of skaven infestation, their underground cities of corruption; others were far more reclusive, supreme sorcerers and experts in entropy. Only twelve of these lords were skaven. The thirteenth and final place in the circle of ultimate command was reserved for their lord of lords: the Horned Rat, a close ally of one of the most powerful lords of Chaos — Nurgle, the god of plague and pestilence.
Heinler had hissed his commands at the two burly skaven who held Konrad in their grip, and he was dragged helplessly backwards through a long dark passage, down into a dank cave where a metal collar was clamped around his neck. The collar was chained to the rock wall. It was as if he were a wild animal that they had caught and tethered; that it was he who was a beast, not them.
The two warrior rats were taller than Konrad, both brown, their fur covered in leather armour and chainmail. They were armed with short swords, and they held the serrated blades at the ready. Both were veterans, their limbs and ugly faces marked with ancient scars. One had an eye missing, and a silver coin was embedded in the empty left socket; the other had both its ears torn away. Each wore the same emblem branded on its forehead: a circle, with four lines from the circumference meeting in the centre, like an inverted T with a fourth radius to the base of the circle.
There was very little light in the cave, because the skaven needed neither lantern nor candle, but Konrad could see that he and his three captors were not alone. There were more chained figur
es in the cavern. None of them moved. Human and inhuman, they were all dead, their corpses rotten and festering, or long turned to dried carcasses, or skeletons, or just a pile of bones…
The place stank of disease and decay. The miasma of putrefaction made Konrad choke and almost throw up.
In the gloom, Konrad saw Heinler bare his teeth in what may have been a skaven grin. He was dressed in a black velvet robe. The hood had been pulled back to show a purple silk lining. The neck of the garment was held by a golden clasp which was in the shape of a horned rat, the skaven deity.
“When I took on human form,” he said, “I wished that I could have had your eyes.” The sibilant whisper was completely different from the voice he used when he had pretended to be a miner, a convicted criminal — a human. He touched the point of the stiletto to Konrad’s lower eyelid, the left one.
“And now I can.”
Konrad drew back instantly, and lashed out with his right leg in an attempt to crush the grey seer’s ribcage. But Heinler sprang out of range, and Konrad was dragged back by the chain. The two guards pounced, pummelling him with the hilts of their swords. Konrad fought back, punching one of the creatures in the jaw, but it had no effect. He was forced down beneath a hail of blows. All he could do was sink to the ground and try to protect his head.
“No, no!” they yelled at him, in urgently whispering parodies of human voices. “Stop! Stop!”
Heinler issued a command, and the two skaven moved back.
“It was a joke,” said Heinler. “Probably. I learned that kind of humour from humans.”
He tapped the handle of the stiletto against the wall, and Konrad wondered what had made him keep the blade.
“Don’t give them any excuse,” Heinler warned. “These are my personal bodyguard, but they may not be able to restrain themselves if provoked. They can smell you — and they want to know what you taste like.”
“Smell me?” Konrad managed to say.
Why should he smell different from any other human? And he had no doubt that the skaven warriors must have tasted human flesh before. They were like the creatures from which they had evolved; rats were scavengers who would devour any kind of flesh — whether alive or dead, fresh or decayed.
“They can smell the warpstone,” explained Heinler.
There was a shout from beyond the cavern, and Heinler turned away as another skaven rushed in through the roughly hewn entrance. The newcomer was smaller, piebald, unarmed and wore no armour. It had two tails, Konrad noticed. Skaven were highly resistant to warpstone mutation, but they could still be affected by various physical changes.
The two-tailed rodent bowed to Heinler, then spoke very rapidly. Before it had completed what it was saying, Heinler began to scurry from the cave. The two soldier rats started to follow, but Heinler shouted a command and one of the two remained.
The guard stood in the entrance, staring back along the shaft. After a minute, he returned to where his captive sat, and he loomed over him.
Konrad tried to lean back, but he was already wedged against the foetid rock. The deformed snout moved closer to him, and he could smell the skaven’s disgusting breath. He noticed its teeth: the two front fangs had been replaced by metal spikes.
The creature’s long tongue rolled from its jaw, and it licked at one of the wounds on Konrad’s cheek, lapping up the blood.
It stepped back. “Good, good,” it hissed, gazing down at him with its single eye. “We be friends, friends.” It made an awful sound, a coughing noise which Konrad realized must have been laughter.
He rubbed his cheek with his hand, wiping away the sticky skaven saliva, and hoped that Heinler would soon return from the shadows. What had drawn him away? There must have been some kind of emergency, judging by all the inhuman yelling that was going on in the distance.
Konrad had been wounded during his battle with the ratmen in the tunnel, although not seriously. He felt sore, and his body was bruised. The chainmail had been severed by one or two heavy blows, and his right arm was bleeding where the metal links had broken and sliced through the protective leather jacket beneath. His arm was in pain and he folded it behind him, tugging at the chainmail which had penetrated his flesh.
He hoped that the one-eyed rat would not notice; but he realized that the creature did not need to see the blood to know of the wounds.
Recalling the rough feel of the skaven’s kiss, Konrad kept touching his face. He moved his fingers up to his eyes, thinking of what Heinler had said.
His left eye had given him no warning of impending danger; he had been unaware that he and Varsung were about to be attacked in the tunnel. This could have been an example of his erratic talent abandoning him at the crucial moment, but he knew it was of far more significance: it was confirmation that the gift of foresight had truly deserted him.
He kept watching his guard. Having tasted blood, the creature was even more dangerous than the rest of his dark breed. Konrad knew there was no way that he could escape, but he had to stay totally alert in order to defend himself from the predator.
The guard’s tongue snaked from its mouth, between its pointed teeth, and it licked at its lips.
“Taste good, good,” the guard assured him, in rapid Old Worlder. “Later more, more.”
Konrad covered his facial wound with his left hand and tried to ignore the skaven.
Warpstone, he thought. Skaven could smell warpstone, and Litzenreich had used warpstone to extract him from the bronze armour.
As he sat on the cold damp stone, surrounded by bodies and bones, a hungry giant rodent standing two paces away, Konrad’s mind went back over the events which had brought him here — and he did not like his line of reasoning and where it led him.
Heinler finally returned, the other guard with him. Konrad rose to his feet, ready for anything.
“Litzenreich!” the skaven snarled.
Konrad remained silent, showed no reaction.
“I wondered what had brought you here, but now I know some of it. Several pounds of warpstone have been stolen, both raw and refined material. It was taken by dwarfs, it seems, but they must have been working for Litzenreich. You were a diversion while the raid took place.”
Konrad still said nothing, but the grey seer’s words confirmed his own conclusion. Litzenreich had sent him here in full knowledge that the skaven would detect the warpstone which he had absorbed, knowing that he would be captured or killed — or worse. The magician did not care what happened to Konrad, or even to Varsung. They were both expendable. Their only purpose had been to distract the attention of the rat-things while the other three dwarfs stole the warpstone.
“Litzenreich amused me once,” Heinler continued. “The idea of a human working with warpstone! Maybe I felt too much sympathy, regarding him as a fellow sorcerer despite his race. I paid the price then. I can no longer tolerate such interference with my vital work. He must die!”
Heinler held the stiletto beneath his human captive’s throat, and for a moment Konrad believed that his own moment of death had arrived.
“I can help you,” Konrad said quickly. As he moved his lower jaw, he felt the point of the dagger prick his flesh.
“Help me?” Heinler repeated, and he made the coughing sound of skaven laughter, but he lowered the knife.
“Yes,” said Konrad quickly, and he wiped the drops of blood from his chin.
His first thought was to save his own life, but he owed Litzenreich nothing. The wizard had not cared about Konrad’s fate. To him, Konrad had been a sacrificial offering, the price paid for acquiring warpstone.
“Never trust a human,” whispered Heinler. “That’s the first thing young skaven learn.”
His gaze shifted from Konrad’s green eye to his golden one. Konrad remembered the threat to take his eyes — and he also recalled his double, whose eyes were a mirror image of his own.
Heinler must have been responsible for his twin opponent. But had the grey seer managed to create an identical likeness o
f Konrad, or had he been under the skaven’s spell, deluded into believing that he was fighting against himself?
“Who did I fight out there?” he asked. “Was it me? Was it myself? Or was I just… just trying to fight my own shadow?”
Heinler gazed at him for several seconds, and Konrad thought that he would not reply, but he eventually said: “It was you, Konrad. Or almost you. More than your reflection, less than your analogue. It could have been an interesting contest, perhaps an infinite duel, if only I’d known you were coming.”
“But…?” Konrad shook his head. He had so many questions that he did not know where to begin, and he was unsure whether the skaven wizard would answer any of them.
When Heinler sighed, it seemed a very human sound. “I refine warpstone,” he said, “that is my task. I’ve organized the process so that the system can function almost without me, which means I need a hobby to keep myself occupied. I began further experiments with reincarnation for my own amusement.” He glanced at the bodies in various stages of decomposition which surrounded Konrad. “Here below Middenheim is an ideal location, and I will be recruiting again very soon.” He raised his head, as though he could see the city far above him. “We had some problems several years ago, but production is increasing once more, and again my pastime is becoming more than that.”
Konrad realized that the humans he had seen at work in the inferno were all dead. Transmuting warpstone must have been so hazardous that only the resurrected corpses could survive.
The creature with whom Konrad had fought had also been a zombie, a life without life, that had been given his own appearance.
Yet Heinler seemed to be saying that he had not known Konrad would be here, although he had his twin ready to do combat with him.
“Are you under Litzenreich’s spell?” said the grey seer, and it seemed that he was asking himself the question. “Who are you, Konrad?”
Their eyes locked, and Konrad said nothing for several seconds, partly because he did not have an answer; but he did not look away.
[Konrad 02] - Shadowbreed Page 15
