02 - Temple of the Serpent

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  Panic seized the skaven, and their wails of shock and fear became a deafening clamour. Thanquol resisted the impulse to join in their terror, instead trying to focus on a way to get himself out of the trap. His mind raced with horrible images of the corridor slowly filling with sand to smother them or scummy swamp water to drown them or huge army ants to devour them. He fought down the hideous visions, staring desperately at the stone block behind him for any clue how to move it. Thanquol found his eyes watering as the air trapped with them became foul with fear musk. Perhaps that was their intention, to let the skaven simply suffocate!

  It was on his tongue to order Boneripper to start killing things so the oxygen would last longer when a new sound reached Thanquol’s ears. It was a dull, grinding noise that throbbed through the walls of the corridor. At first he thought it was a delusion of his fear, but soon the grey seer could not deny that the walls were moving. Inch by inch they were being pressed inwards. He thought about the manner in which slug jelly was made and new horror gripped him.

  “Boneripper!” Thanquol shrieked at his bodyguard, straining to make himself heard above the terrified squeals of the other skaven and the screams of the humans. “Open-open! Quick-quick!” The grey seer pushed against the heavy stone block choking the corridor.

  To Thanquol’s horror, the stupid rat ogre simply turned and trudged deeper down the hall, swatting aside the skaven that got in his way. The grey seer hurled curse after curse after the lumbering brute, threatening him with all manner of terrible deaths if he didn’t come back and move the block.

  Thanquol returned to his desperate attack on the stone block. He sent a bolt of black lightning crashing against it, but all the spell did was to warm the rock. He tried to focus his mind around an escape spell, but knew his concentration wasn’t equal to the challenge. He kept thinking that even if he successfully slipped into the Realm of Chaos and back again, he might reappear on the roof of the pyramid with Xiuhcoatl. That would be like jumping out of the cat and into the snake!

  The grey seer spun about as he felt something brush against him. His hand lashed out, and he heard a skaven cry out in pain. Then he felt a tremor in the aethyr. There was a crimson flash of light, a sound like thunder and the stink of brimstone. Thanquol quickly patted his robes and found that some of his warpstone was missing. He ground his fangs together in fury, willing to bet that flea-ridden sorcerer Shen Tsinge wasn’t with them anymore. It would be just like the coward to abandon his friends and save his own fur!

  Boneripper had reached the middle of the passage. The walls were so close together now that the rat ogre was forced to move sideways, and even then it was a tight squeeze for him. He moved with one ear pressed against the wall. When he got to the middle of the corridor, he stopped. Crouching low to the floor, Boneripper drove one of his mammoth fists against the wall. Stone crumbled beneath the blow. A second punch and an entire block cracked away. Boneripper reached into the hole he had made, his claws scrabbling about in the darkness.

  Thanquol scrabbled desperately at the stone blocking his retreat as the walls came grinding still closer. Then, suddenly, they stopped. At first he blinked in disbelief, but it was true, the walls had stopped moving. He glanced back down the corridor and saw Boneripper pulling twisted copper rods and gears from the hole he had made. The clever, loyal rat ogre had stopped the walls just in time!

  Thanquol stalked through the huddled masses of his shivering minions. It was important to show them that the ordeal hadn’t frightened him in the least. After all, he’d told his bodyguard to get them out of the trap. He could have easily tried to escape by using his magic, but he had stayed behind to make certain his followers were safe too. He could see they appreciated that by the way they stared at him in reverence and awe.

  “Boneripper!” Thanquol called. He pointed his staff at the block choking the far end of the passage. “Move that thing and open the way for us.”

  Obediently, Boneripper squeezed his way along the corridor and began pushing the heavy block. It took a long time to get the stone moved and Thanquol was forced to have the humans and some of the gutter runners help the rat ogre. But they did get it open at last.

  A shadowy figure raced at them from the darkness as soon as they emerged from the trapped corridor. The scent of the apparition told Thanquol who it was before he saw him. Briefly, Thanquol considered blasting Shen Tsinge with a bolt of warp-lightning anyway.

  “Great master, you have escaped!” Shen whimpered, throwing himself at Thanquol’s feet. There was genuine terror in the sorcerer’s voice. After escaping the crushing walls, Shen had found himself alone in the blackness of the pyramid. Unable to smell another skaven, his nose filled with the reek of snakes instead, Shen’s instincts overwhelmed him and he’d come running back.

  Thanquol drove the head of his staff into Shen’s belly, knocking the wind out of him and doubling him over. While the sorcerer tried to suck breath back into his lungs, Thanquol frisked him and removed the warpstone nuggets he had stolen.

  “Be thankful I might still need you,” Thanquol hissed in Shen’s ear. “Otherwise I would give you to them.” He gestured at the other Eshin ratmen who stared at Shen with murderous eyes. “I don’t think they appreciate the way you left everyone behind.”

  Thanquol motioned for Tsang to lead the humans forwards again. “You should understand, mage-rat. When you are leader, you need to look after your underlings as though they were your own whelps.”

  Adalwolf kept watching his verminous captors, waiting for the fiends to relax their guard. Unfortunately they seemed perpetually paranoid, leaping at shadows and whining at every change in the air. Only when they had all been trapped in the corridor with the moving walls had the underfolk been inattentive enough to give Adalwolf the opportunity he wanted, but there had been no place to go.

  The journey through the darkness of the pyramid was a terrifying ordeal. Only sporadically did the ratmen light a torch so he could see where he was expected to lead them. Most of the time he was forced to feel his way, the image of an open pit an omnipresent fear. The vermin were oblivious and uncaring to his blindness. They scratched, kicked and bit him every time their patience wore thin. He could hear the cries of his companions each time the ratmen became impatient and vented their frustrations. Hiltrude’s sharp moans, Diethelm’s weary gasps and the pained curses of the two remaining sailors were knives of guilt twisting in his belly each time he heard them. Even the whines and pleas of van Sommerhaus had ceased to provide Adalwolf with sardonic satisfaction. Whatever his many faults, at least the patroon was human.

  In a horrible way, Adalwolf couldn’t even blame Schachter and Marjus for abandoning them. They had seen a chance for escape and they had taken it. Under such ghastly circumstances, he wondered if he would have done the same. He liked to think he wouldn’t have.

  Except at those times when he was allowed light, the ratmen were nothing but chitters and stench to Adalwolf. All he could see of them were their baleful red eyes gleaming in the darkness. The underfolk appeared perfectly capable of navigating the dark, but their horned leader’s fear about traps caused Adalwolf to continue to walk point. The craven things intended that he should find any more of the stones with the snake-glyph on them. Adalwolf wished that he would find others. It might offer a chance for escape.

  He thought of the strange creatures who had built this place. That sight of the reptilian priest cutting out the heart of a ratman was burned into his brain. He’d never seen anything quite as horrible in all his life as that gruesome spectacle. Indeed, for all their apparent enmity towards the underfolk, Adalwolf wasn’t certain which of them he was more afraid of: the ratmen or the lizardmen.

  During one of the frequent rests they were allowed while the ratmen bickered among themselves, Diethelm had whispered his own observations to the others. He was attuned enough to the gods and their ways to feel the divine power radiating from the Lizardman they had seen conducting the sacrifice. It wasn’t the warm, w
holesome aura of the gods they knew, but rather something cold, distant and uncaring. However, there was no denying the magnitude of the power he sensed within the reptile-priest. It was, Diethelm confessed with a shudder, like the presence of the High Matriarch of Manann, only even greater.

  The priest also wondered if Thanquol hadn’t lied to them when they were captured about creating the strange path through the jungle for them. It seemed a feat of magic that was beyond the ratmen. Diethelm wasn’t sure it was beyond the strange, scaly lizardmen. But if the lizardmen had brought them, the question remained as to why they had brought them.

  Adalwolf shrugged aside the lingering question. It was a problem to worry about later. For now, escaping from the ratmen was the only thing.

  The chance the mercenary had been watching for came when the corridor they had been travelling suddenly opened out into a vast natural cavern. The light from the torch one of the ratmen held cast weird shimmers across the floor and the air was thick with a stagnant dampness. A few steps into the room and Adalwolf discovered why the floor reflected the light. It wasn’t a floor at all, but a vast pool. The water was almost level with the ledge that surrounded it and so filmed over with scum that it was easy to mistake it for solid ground in the darkness.

  There was something more, however. Adalwolf could see ugly yellow bulbs floating just beneath the surface. It took him a moment to decide that they were some manner of egg. The spawn of the lizardmen? He crouched and put his hand into the water, finding it almost hot to his touch. Quickly he was pulled away by one of the vicious ratmen. Greedily, the vermin pawed at the water, scooping out one of the yellowish bulbs.

  Adalwolf’s suspicion that the bulbs were eggs was quickly confirmed as the ratman broke it open and began slurping out the yolk. The monster that had been keeping a knife on Hiltrude made a jealous snarl and rushed the first ratman. Tsang Kweek tore the egg from the underling’s paws and gave him a spiteful kick that knocked him into the pool. Viciously, Tsang tore apart the leathery shell and began gnawing on the half-formed reptile inside.

  The mercenary turned away from the hideous sight. In doing so, he noticed something moving in the water, sliding through the scummy film towards the ratman Tsang had thrown into the pool. He quickly looked back at his captors, but they were too busy pawing at the water to grab more eggs to see the menace moving towards them.

  “When I say move,” Adalwolf whispered to his companions, “we all make a rush for those stairs.” He nodded his chin to a set of stone steps a few dozen yards further along the ledge that circled the pool. It was just visible in the flickering light of the ratman’s torch.

  “We can’t!” protested van Sommerhaus. “They’ll catch us!”

  Adalwolf winced at the patroon’s craven words and more particularly the volume with which they were said. He glanced at the ratmen, but none of them seemed to have heard. He grabbed van Sommerhaus by his frilled vest. “Stay with them then, but don’t get in my way!”

  “We’re with you,” Hiltrude told him, glancing with disgust at her benefactor. The sailors and Diethelm gave nods of approval.

  Adalwolf looked back at the pool, watching for any sign of the swimming creature he had seen. He couldn’t be certain, but he had the impression of other beasts moving through the water now. “The underfolk are going to have some problems in a little while. When they’re busy, make for the stairs. I’ll be right behind you after I get the torch.”

  His instructions had only just been whispered when the ratman in the pool suddenly vanished. The sudden disappearance wasn’t noticed by the rest of the underfolk, but when a huge scaly hand erupted from the pool and pulled one of the egg thieves under the water, the entire pack began to squeal in fright. They scurried away from the edge of the pool, but their quick retreat wasn’t enough to save them.

  Three enormous lizardmen leapt from the pool, landing upon the stone ledge and hissing at the underfolk. They were gigantic creatures, their bodies encased in thick dark scales, their enormous jaws sporting huge fangs. There might have been some kinship between these beasts and the small, wiry lizardmen they had seen outside, but if so it was more distant even than that between the ratmen and the giant brute their leader kept as his bodyguard.

  At the first sight of the lizardmen, the underfolk cringed away in fear. The hissing reptiles soon laid into them with giant clubs and axes, weapons that shone with the fiery lustre of gold. The death shrieks of ratmen became deafening as the hulking reptiles attacked the intruders.

  Adalwolf knew that the ratmen would quickly overcome their fear. Either their merciless master would goad them into fighting the troll-like lizardmen or else they would retreat. Whichever choice they made, Adalwolf had no intention of following them.

  Hiltrude and the others were making their panicked race to the stairs, even van Sommerhaus running along with them. Adalwolf spun about, leaping at the ratman with the torch. The creature’s attention was entirely upon the lizardmen, he had forgotten the prisoners. It was the last mistake the vermin ever made. In brutally short order, Adalwolf’s arm locked around the monster’s neck, breaking it with a savage twist.

  Swiftly, Adalwolf retrieved the torch from where it blazed on the floor. He turned and ripped the rusty sword from the ratman’s belt.

  Now the battle was joined. Thanquol’s shrill voice rang out, imperious and tyrannical, snarling at his minions to attack the lizardmen. A crackling sheet of lightning rose from the horned ratman’s staff, engulfing one of the huge lizardmen, electrocuting both it and the two underfolk caught in the reptile’s paws.

  Adalwolf didn’t wait to see more. He spun about and made a mad dash for the stairs. He could see his friends crossing the ledge ahead of him. He could also see a scaly back moving through the waters of the pool towards them.

  The mercenary opened his mouth to shout a warning, but he was too late. Another giant Lizardman burst from the pool, seizing one of the sailors in its claws. The seaman screamed piteously as the monster twisted his body apart with a horrible wrenching motion of its hands.

  Adalwolf roared his most fierce war cry as he saw the beast discard its first victim and reach for another. The monster turned at his call and Adalwolf shoved his torch into its eyes. The Lizardman reeled back, but in a slow and clumsy fashion. Its lethargic nervous system hadn’t registered the bite of the flame until the scales of its face were blackened and charred.

  As the giant reptile stumbled, Adalwolf drove his sword into its gut. For an instant, he thought the rusty underfolk blade would buckle and fail to pierce the thick scaly hide, but at last the sword sank into the lizardman’s flesh. Adalwolf made one effort to pull the blade free before he was forced to duck a sweep of the monster’s lashing tail. The Lizardman stared at him from its burnt face and opened its jaws in a vicious hiss.

  If there had been anywhere to run, Adalwolf would have fled from the monster. But the beast stood between himself and the stairs, completely blocking his way. His only hope lay in the brute’s slow reactions. It still seemed half asleep, perhaps adjusting its cold body to the change from the hot pool to the clammy atmosphere of the pyramid’s cellars.

  Roaring at the lizardman, Adalwolf lunged at the hulking brute, throwing himself flat and diving between its clawed legs. He screamed in pain as he was battered by the beast’s tail as he scrambled underneath the monster, feeling as though a dragon had bounced his skull against the floor. Vengefully, he struck the monster with the torch again. The flame failed to burn the dripping scales of the lizardman’s tail, but the heat was enough to drive it back.

  Adalwolf leapt to his feet, stumbling towards the stairs, He saw the huge lizardman turn to pursue him, but at that moment the beast was set upon from behind. The reptile was locked in the crushing embrace of Thanquol’s rat ogre. The lizardman flailed and clawed at its attacker, but Boneripper took small notice of the whipping tail and slashing claws. The rat ogre buried his fangs in the lizardman’s neck, biting deep into its throat.

 
The mercenary didn’t wait to watch the end of that struggle, but as he climbed the stairs, he thought he could hear the lizardman’s ribs cracking one by one as Boneripper crushed the life from it.

  “Hurry!” he shouted at Hiltrude and the others, impressed beyond words that they had waited for him. “It looks like the underfolk are going to win that fight and I don’t want to be around when they do!”

  Panicked by his words, the small band of refugees fled up the stairs, hoping that whatever horrors the darkness ahead held, they would be better than the nightmare they had left behind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Sacred Serpent of Sotek

  As the fugitives fled up the stairs, the stink of reptilian musk intensified, becoming an overwhelming reek that made their skin crawl with loathing. After the horrific attack by the lizardmen in the spawning pools, the humans had new reasons to find the smell intimidating, reasons that went beyond even the natural repugnance of all mammalian life for the reptiles that had ruled before them.

  Adalwolf forced his companions to press on when they would have succumbed to their fear and tried to turn back. There was nothing to return to. Either the ratmen had triumphed over the guardians of the pool, or the lizardmen had slaughtered the invaders. Whichever side had won, there was only death waiting for them back there. They could only press on and hope they would find some way out of this maze of ancient horrors.

  There was one thing that the mercenary found reassuring about the thick ophidian stench. In his brief time with the ratkin, he had seen the way they relied more upon their sense of smell than their sense of sight. He knew they were even more frightened of the reptiles than he was. The greater the musky reek of snakes became, the greater the likelihood that the skaven wouldn’t follow them.

  The mercenary led the way, holding the sputtering torch before him, watching its flame with an uneasy eye. He whispered a soft prayer to Myrmidia to keep the flame alive, glancing at Diethelm as he did so and wondering if it was impious to invoke the goddess while the priest of another god was standing beside him.