02 - Temple of the Serpent

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

  Over and across the temple the great serpent writhed, toppling fire pots and crumpling the priceless altar into a mass of flattened gold and crushed gems. The monster’s hissing became a deafening susurrus, echoing from the walls, bouncing from the floor and ceiling. Again and again the snake’s coils thrashed and rolled about the temple, obliterating everything in their path.

  As the snake tired and fell still once more, Boneripper leaped down upon it. The rat ogre had jumped clear of the snake the moment it had started to roll over, though its primitive brain had failed to recognise the fact. While the giant reptile raged through the temple, Boneripper had watched it from the column he had climbed. The rat ogre had nearly been knocked from his perch when the serpent’s agonies had caused it to strike the pillar, but he clung fiercely to the shaking stone and when the snake had passed, he remained with the broken stone stub still hanging from the ceiling.

  Now Boneripper assaulted the serpent with twice the fury as before. The weary monster did not see him until the instant before his huge claws were again slashing into the scaly flesh clothing its jaws.

  Bloody froth bubbled from the corners of the snake’s mouth as Boneripper dislocated its jaws. The serpent lashed and flailed in agony, trying to batter its attacker with its heavy coils, but the rat ogre held fast. Exerting his tremendous strength, he wrenched the snake’s lower jaw clear of its socket. The dislocated jaw flopped obscenely beneath the serpent’s head, its flickering tongue thrashing wildly.

  Boneripper seized the lower jaw in both hands and began to pull savagely at it. The serpent struggled against the brutal attack, but it lacked the strength to roll its body again and crush the rat ogre beneath it. Its tail whipped at Boneripper, slashing deep cuts across his limbs and back, but even these hurts were not enough to make him relent.

  Straining, every vein standing out upon his brow, Boneripper began to tear the snake’s lower jaw loose, ripping it free from its mouth in a single scaly strip. The serpent’s struggles became more desperate and agonised, but still it could not drive off the hulking rat ogre. He continued to pull on the jaw, using it to rip a long sliver of flesh from the underside of the snake’s neck, exposing the long oesophagus beneath.

  The great serpent twisted in a pool of its own blood. No longer did it consciously try to escape Boneripper, though its coils continued to writhe with a mindless agony of their own. The rat ogre continued to tear a long, scaly strip of flesh from the reptile’s throat, ripping a great dripping swathe down its neck. Only when he reached the bulge in the monster’s throat did Boneripper relent. As the last strip of scaly flesh was pulled back, something more than reptilian meat and bone rewarded the rat ogre’s efforts. Eagerly he reached into the ghastly fissure, pulling free a slimy, dripping mass.

  Grey Seer Thanquol coughed and sputtered, straining to draw air into his suffocated lungs. He found it impossible to stand, his head swimming from the violent rolling of the serpent. Dizzy, he crashed to the floor, yelping in pain as the fall hurt his tail.

  Foul and slimy with the reptile’s juices, his robes and fur plastered against his skin, his talismans and amulets hanging from him in wild disorder, Thanquol presented a miserable, pathetic spectacle. He blinked like a newborn whelp, trying to force the world to stop spinning whenever he looked at it. The snake filth coating him choked his nose, making it almost impossible to smell anything but the reptile’s muck. His ears were still ringing from the pounding of the reptile’s heart.

  Hacking filth from his throat, the slimy skaven stared up at Boneripper, waiting until the three rat ogres he saw merged into a single creature. Angrily, Thanquol kicked the brute’s leg.

  “What-what took-take you so long-long, flea-weaning maggot-spawn!” the grey seer raged. The rat ogre looked suitably chastened, cringing before Thanquol’s wrath.

  The grey seer wiped filth from his snout and glared at the chamber around him. Boneripper was the only one of his craven minions to stand by him, the others had fled like lice before the giant snake. When Thanquol caught up to them, they would pay dearly for such craven treachery! He’d sew up the lot of them inside the snake’s carcass and let them see how it felt!

  Vengeful thoughts made Thanquol spin about when he heard the sound of boots moving across the temple floor. He could see the arrogant human who had dared to set the snake on him fleeing across the chamber, making for one of the openings in the wall. He felt the impulse to blast the man-thing with a bolt of warp-lightning or to set Boneripper after him. Only the consideration that the snake might have a mate slithering about somewhere made Thanquol fight back the impulse. If only his cowardly underlings hadn’t run off at the first chance!

  Sounds of skaven paws scampering up stone steps made a malevolent grin spread across Thanquol’s face. So the cowards were coming back! They’d realised they couldn’t survive without his brilliant leadership!

  Thanquol quickly wiped away the worst of the snake-slime coating him and struck his most imperious pose. He pointed his staff at the running human and growled at the skaven he saw running up the stairs.

  “Kill-kill man-thing and bring-take his spleen to me!”

  Audaciously, the ratmen ignored Thanquol’s order but simply ran deeper into the temple. Furious, Thanquol ordered Boneripper to intercept the mob of gutter runners and assassins. The obedient rat ogre pounced upon the foremost gutter runner, crushing him beneath his paws.

  That spectacle at least stopped the skaven from running, but Thanquol felt a cold chill creep along his spine when, instead of staring fearfully at the grey seer and his bodyguard, the ratmen cast terrified looks over their shoulders at the tunnel they had just emerged from.

  Thanquol followed their gaze and felt a shock of horror as he watched a swarm of blue-scaled skinks and towering kroxigor rush out of the darkness and into the temple. At their head, carrying his golden staff, was Xiuhcoatl, the terrible Prophet of Sotek.

  The lizardmen stared past the skaven they had been pursuing, noting the enormous bloody bulk of their sacred serpent strewn about Thanquol’s feet. The grey seer felt the urge to cower as he felt those cold eyes staring at him. He could imagine the fury surging through their reptilian hearts, the murderous outrage of religious zealots who have seen their holy of holies violated and defiled. He remembered the awful vengeance Grey Seer Gnawdoom had visited upon the man-wizard Bagrain for desecrating the Black Ark. Any instant he expected to hear Xiuhcoatl shriek in rage, to send his followers sweeping forwards in a murderous frenzy.

  Instead, the lizardmen regarded their slaughtered godling with an icy, passionless detachment. There was no emotion as they silently crept into the temple, only a sinister calculating gleam in their unblinking eyes.

  As Thanquol backed away from the reptiles he thought that a display of honest hate and anger might have been welcome beside the cold, utterly alien serenity of the lizardmen.

  Thanquol had only the briefest vision of Xiuhcoatl and his warriors. A wall of inky darkness suddenly spread between the lizardmen and the skaven, cutting them off from one another. He could see Shen Tsinge gesturing madly with his staff, the sorcerer’s fur standing on end as he drew upon the forces of the aethyr. He felt a twinge of fear as he watched the sorcerer wield his magic, remembering the dark magic of the shadowmancer who had nearly destroyed him beneath Altdorf not long ago. More than before, Thanquol determined to arrange an accident for the treacherous sorcerer.

  A thunderous explosion shook the temple and Shen’s wall of shadow vanished in a burst of blinding light. Through the light stalked the lizardmen, their golden weapons raised high, their fangs bared and a threatening hiss rasping from their throats. Xiuhcoatl strode forwards with his warriors, his staff still burning with the power he had used to banish Shen’s sorcery. Once again, Thanquol was awed by the creature’s ability, by the sense of arcane might that the skink exuded.

  Awe turned to blind panic, for as Thanquol watched the Prophet of Sotek stalk closer in his mind’s eye he could see himself lying boun
d at the top of the pyramid and the skink’s hand tearing out his beating heart. The grey seer gnashed his fangs against the horrible image and he thrust a nugget of warpstone between his jaws. Hastily he wove the winds of magic together, using the warpstone to fuel his desperate spell. Almost he forgot to mutter a pray to the Horned Rat before he unleashed his magic, but even with Xiuhcoatl marching towards him, Thanquol could not completely forget fear of his own god.

  An icy wind exploded from the grey seer’s staff, a gale drawn from the chill Realm of Chaos itself. Thanquol squealed in delight as he saw the lizardmen falter before his magic, their movements turning sluggish, their weapons falling slack against their sides.

  “Now-now!” Thanquol shrieked at his minions. “Kill-kill scaly-meat!”

  The skaven did not have to be told twice. Predatory instincts overcame ancient fear and the ratmen fell upon the reptiles in a furious tide of slashing swords and snapping fangs. The lizardmen, rendered all but helpless by Thanquol’s frozen spell, were easy prey for the agile skaven. Huge kroxigors fell, their bellies split open, their massive mauls and axes clattering against the floor beside them. Skink archers fitted arrows to their bows but so slow had they become that the ratmen were upon them before they could fire. Dozens of the cold-blooded creatures were cut down, butchered by the blades of the skaven. In almost the blink of an eye, the floor of the temple was littered with Lizardman dead.

  Then a flash of light burst from Xiuhcoatl’s staff. The Prophet glared at the skaven around him as they slaughtered his followers. The ratmen wheeled away from the skink priest, recoiling as another pulse of energy thundered from his golden staff. With each pulse of energy, a wave of heat washed over the lizardmen, invigorating their sluggish bodies and warming the chill blood in their veins.

  Now the skaven did not have such an easy time slaying their enemies. A group of gutter runners rushed a square of skink spearmen only to fall with javelins piercing their bodies when the lizardmen suddenly threw their weapons. An assassin leapt upon the back of a kroxigor, trying to slit the huge monster’s scaly throat, but the towering Lizardman simply turned his head and snapped his jaws, catching one of the skaven’s paws in his teeth. Before the assassin could lash out, the kroxigor threw him with a savage turn of his head, then crushed the fallen killer’s chest with a stomp of his scaly foot.

  Thanquol sent a bolt of warp-lightning crackling at Xiuhcoatl’s head. His eyes went round with horror as he saw the spell evaporate before it could even strike the skink. His terror only increased when he felt the lizardman’s eyes staring at him. “Kill-kill Xiuhcoatl!” he shrieked, diving behind the carcass of the giant snake before the skink could target him with a spell.

  Peering from behind his gory refuge, Thanquol saw Tsang Kweek and a pair of assassins rush Xiuhcoatl from every side. The grey seer rubbed his paws in anticipation. The skink might stop one or even two of the ratmen, but certainly not all three! These were the cloaked killers of Clan Eshin, the finest murderers in all the Under-Empire!

  Xiuhcoatl did not seem to appreciate or notice the death rushing towards him. The skink priest continued to march across the temple floor, his eyes focused upon Thanquol’s hiding place. Thanquol felt his glands clench when he realised the skink was intent upon confronting him, but he grinned savagely when he thought about the three killers closing upon his enemy.

  The first assassin leapt upon Xiuhcoatl as though the skink were a piece of Marienburg cheese. With daggers clenched in fists, mouth and tail, the assassin seemed certain in his triumph. Xiuhcoatl didn’t even look at the skaven, simply pointing a claw in his direction. White flames engulfed the shrieking assassin, devouring him so swiftly that when he struck the stone floor his body collapsed into a pile of ash.

  The second assassin tried an old Eshin trick of rolling across the floor and ending the manoeuvre in an upward stab of his sword. Again, the skink did not deign to notice him, but simply pointed in his direction. A finger of crackling blue energy shot from the lizardman’s claw searing into the assassin’s face. The skaven wailed in agony, then crashed to the floor, daggers slipping from lifeless hands, his head reduced to a smoking skull.

  Tsang Kweek gave a terrified cry, hurling his sword at Xiuhcoatl’s back before turning tail to run. The blade melted in mid-air before ever striking the Prophet. The skink slowly turned to regard the fleeing ratman. Xiuhcoatl clenched his fist and a fiery stone shot from the fanged icon upon his staff. The tiny meteor rocketed across the temple, smashing into Tsang Kweek with the force of a cannon ball. The gutter runner stared dumbly at the gaping hole the burning stone had punched through his chest, then slumped onto his side and was still.

  Grey Seer Thanquol bruxed his fangs together and cursed the incompetent underlings. Finest killers in all the Under-Empire! The filthy vermin couldn’t even kill a flea without someone spelling out every step for them! The miserable maggots weren’t fit to pop ticks on a brood-mother’s arse!

  Thanquol spun about as he felt paws fumbling at his robes. As he turned, he was rewarded by a sharp blow against his snout. Recoiling in pain, Thanquol lifted his staff to block Shen Tsinge’s as the sorcerer tried to strike him a second time.

  “Filthy seer-rat-scum!” Shen snarled. “All-all lost-fail because Thanquol is fool-fool!” The sorcerer raised his other paw, displaying the warpstone he had picked from Thanquol’s pockets. “Give-give all-all warpstone, Thanquol-meat, and Shen Tsinge leave you for lizard-things!”

  Thanquol bared his fangs at the sorcerer. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Shen Tsinge grinned back, murderous and triumphant. He nodded at the huge bulk of the rat ogre standing behind him. “Yes-yes,” he agreed. “Goji should be the one to crush Thanquol-meat in his claws!” He pointed at the grey seer and growled at the rat ogre. “Goji! Kill-smash Thanquol-meat!”

  “Boneripper!” Thanquol shrieked back. “Hold-take this traitor-rat!”

  The rat ogre stomped forward, his beady eyes glaring first at Thanquol, then at Shen Tsinge and finally back at Thanquol. The grey seer shrank back as he felt the rat ogre start to reach for him. Then, suddenly, Boneripper spun around, his huge hands closing about Shen Tsinge, splintering the sorcerer’s staff as he crushed it against his body.

  “Goji! No-no! Shen Tsinge is master!” the sorcerer screeched.

  Thanquol grinned maliciously at the struggling sorcerer, then glanced over the carcass of the serpent. Xiuhcoatl had been distracted by another pair of assassins, but that diversion was certain to be short. He needed something more substantial to keep the skink occupied. A gruesome laugh chittered through Thanquol’s fangs.

  “You want-take my warpstone?” the grey seer asked, removing several nuggets from his robe. “I will give them to you, Shen Tsinge, to honour your faithful service.”

  Shen Tsinge struggled in Boneripper’s iron grip, trying to wriggle free. Thanquol would have enjoyed watching his futile efforts, but he knew there was no time. Pinching the sorcerer’s nose shut with one claw, he waited until Shen was forced to draw another breath. As soon as he opened his mouth to suck down air, Thanquol thrust the entire mass of warpstone down Shen’s throat. Holding the sorcerer’s mouth shut, Thanquol gave him a simple choice: choke or swallow.

  At last the sorcerer could endure the ordeal no longer and he gagged down the deadly black rocks. In small amounts warpstone was the lifeblood of skavendom, fuelling their industry, their magic and their diet. In greater amounts, however, even the corrupt constitution of the ratmen was unable to assimilate the lethal qualities of warpstone. What Thanquol had fed Shen Tsinge was enough to kill a hundred ratmen. In one sense, it was a waste, but in another Thanquol knew it was wealth well spent.

  Boneripper dropped Shen Tsinge as the sorcerer’s body began to burn from within. Glowing green pulses of light began to sear through the sorcerer’s fur and robes. His body began to twist and swell as the unrestrained, unfocused energies continued to gather. Thanquol thought of a ratskin bag being filled to bursting
with dwarfblood wine. He didn’t want to be around when the bag burst.

  “Boneripper!” Thanquol cried, pointing at the exit he had seen Adalwolf flee towards. “Quick-quick!”

  Grey seer and rat ogre dashed from behind their refuge, racing across the blood-slick floor for the exit.

  Arrows loosed from the tiny skink bows clattered around them, but the distance was too great for even the jungle hunters to deliver much accuracy. Other lizardmen broke off from capturing the few skaven that had survived the fight and set off in pursuit of Thanquol and Boneripper. The stink of their scaly bodies grew stronger and stronger in his nose and Thanquol began to despair of ever reaching the tunnel. He thought of Xiuhcoatl standing over him with his heart dripping through the skink’s scaly fingers. Fear lent the grey seer a new burst of speed.

  Then the entire temple shook, a howling maelstrom of energy crashing and roaring through the colossal chamber. Lizardmen were battered and torn by the unleashed energies, dashed against the walls and crushed against the pillars. Thanquol himself was thrown by the explosion, only his horns saving him from a broken skull when he slid headfirst into the wall. He shook the spots from his vision and spat a cracked fang from his mouth.

  Rising to his feet, Thanquol saw the chaos that had fallen upon his enemies. When Shen Tsinge’s warp-stone-gorged body had burst, the unleashed power had hurled lizardmen pell-mell throughout the temple. Many were limping on broken legs or holding twisted arms to their sides. Others were unmoving wrecks, necks and backs broken by the sorcerous explosion.

  Xiuhcoatl himself was busy trying to contain the furious energies Shen Tsinge’s destruction had unleashed. A purple fire glowed where Thanquol had left the sorcerer and in its light the temple itself began to corrode, the ancient stones crumbling into powder like bread infested with mould. Thanquol did not know how far or fast the magical corruption would spread or if Xiuhcoatl would actually be able to purge it. He only knew he wanted to be very far away before he discovered any of those answers.