02 - Temple of the Serpent

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

  Van Sommerhaus had thought much of his death in the long hours he had spent hiding in the stone corridors. He thought about the kind of death that suited his station. To fall nobly in battle, making an end of himself that would be sung by the minstrels for hundreds of years, that would be the most fitting capstone to his career. To be remembered as merchant, mariner, playwright and hero, that was the finish he would not run from.

  The patroon caught his breath and hurried down the corridor, turning his gaze away from a carving of a bloated toad that seemed to watch him with its sapphire eyes. If he escaped this horrible place, perhaps he would return to the Empire. He could face his persecutors, challenge their small-minded bigotries. Why, he’d confront Thaddeus Gamow, the Lord Protector of Sigmar’s witch hunters and dare the villain to face him across bare steel! That would be a confrontation that would truly be the epic ending worthy of Lukas van Sommerhaus!

  A rasping, hissing noise from further up the corridor made van Sommerhaus freeze in his steps. He turned an anxious eye back up the corridor, but all he could see were the sapphire gleams of the stone toads watching him from the edge of the torchlight. Nervously, he continued to rub the gold coin until his thumb began to bleed.

  After finding the torch he now carried set into a gilded sconce, he’d tried to avoid any tunnel that flickered with light. He reasoned that they had the most chance of being populated. By sticking to the darkness, van Sommerhaus hoped to avoid the inhabitants of the pyramid. After all, he had not escaped the hunger of the ratmen simply to end up in the cooking pots of walking lizards!

  Van Sommerhaus smiled as he fancied that the hissing sounds were withdrawing back up the corridor. Again he had outwitted the primitive, reptilian brutes! He would stick to his course, keep to the shadows and eventually make his way out of the ghastly temple.

  He tried to ignore the ugly observation he had earlier made. He tried to forget that the corridors he followed, the ones that were not lit by torches, were leading him downward, not upward. He tried to silence the nagging fear that he was running farther and farther from any exit from the pyramid. He tried to tell himself that he imagined the sense of pressure that made his ears ring.

  He wasn’t deep below the earth. He wouldn’t allow himself to entertain the idea. One more turn, one more archway, and he would see the sun shining. He would feel the damp heat of the jungle and he would be free.

  Van Sommerhaus turned his corner and passed through his archway. He stopped rubbing the coin in his pocket. A brilliant light shone back at him.

  It wasn’t the light of the sun.

  It was better.

  Almost the patroon wished someone was with him, someone to appreciate the magnitude of what he had found. He thought of Adalwolf and Hiltrude and even the traitorous Captain Schachter. None of them would ever know of his find. Van Sommerhaus felt sorry for them, hunted like rats in the maze. They would never know the riches that could have been theirs, the riches that fate had reserved to reforge the fortune of the House van Sommerhaus!

  Trembling, van Sommerhaus stepped through the archway and into a chamber so vast that his torchlight failed to illuminate more than a fragment of its enormity. He stooped and ran his hand along the floor—the floor that was paved in gold. He stared at the ceiling above—the ceiling that was roofed in gold. The columns that supported the roof were likewise gold. So too were the great shelves that ran along the walls and the huge square altars that sat on the floor.

  Handrich had answered the patroon’s prayers in a way only the god of merchants could.

  It was like walking into a gilded heaven, a miser’s vision of Norscan Valhal.

  The only thing that ruined the effect for van Sommerhaus were the long, shrivelled, cloth-wrapped shapes that stretched along the shelves on the walls. The patroon felt a twinge of uneasiness as he thought about what the things might have looked like once, trying to imagine a serpent twice the size of the one that had tried to swallow him.

  He brushed aside the foolish image and returned his attention to the wealth surrounding him on every side. Whatever the things might have been once, they were dead now.

  Van Sommerhaus would be damned if he was going to be frightened by a bunch of mouldering old mummies.

  Grey Seer Thanquol glared at the insolent slave-thing. How dare it refuse him! He’d saved the worthless, hairless monkey from the scaly-things! He’d risked his pelt getting him away from the abominable lizardmen and this was how the filthy thing thanked him!

  He drew another pinch of warpstone snuff to calm his excited nerves. The terror of his desperate battle was still throbbing through his blood. He would never have risked himself if there had been another way, but that idiot Boneripper wasn’t able to do anything more than wrestle with the kroxigor, leaving all the other lizardmen for Thanquol to take care of! Of course it would have been a simple matter if he’d been able to call upon his supreme mastery of the black arts. A single spell would have reduced the entire pack of reptiles into charred husks. Nothing could withstand the magic of Thanquol once it had provoked his wrath!

  But there was Xiuhcoatl to think about. Thanquol tried to keep his glands from clenching as he did think about the Prophet of Sotek and his formidable powers. Xiuhcoatl might sense any use of magic within his pyramid. The last thing Thanquol needed was to draw Xiuhcoatl’s attention.

  Without magic and with Boneripper making a big squeak and dance about killing one scrawny kroxigor, Thanquol had been forced to rely upon his wits and martial prowess to carry the fight. He’d emptied both of the pistols he’d confiscated from the humans, hoping the shots would be enough to send the lizardmen running. When they weren’t, he’d summoned up his courage (and a bit of warpstone snuff) and charged into battle. What happened next was one big blur to him, but the pile of dead around his paws was testimony to his valour.

  If only he didn’t need the human so badly, he would never have put himself at such risk. But he needed the human, as much as he needed his own skin! Xiuhcoatl would know every exit from the pyramid and would have placed wards there to guard against invasion by the skaven. It was death for any skaven to pass near the wards. Thanquol needed a lesser creature to clear the path for him. As before, that meant using the human.

  Unfortunately, the human knew it! The stubborn, stupid beast was exploiting its own usefulness to bargain with him! Him, Grey Seer Thanquol, bickering with a lowly man-thing like some rat-wife shopping the skrawls of Skavenblight! And after the selfless way Thanquol had rescued the miserable creature!

  “I’m not leaving without Hiltrude,” Adalwolf told Thanquol for the third time.

  Thanquol gnashed his fangs together. “I don’t care-want breeder-slave!” he snarled. “We leave-leave now-now! You lead-show way!”

  “Even if I knew the way out, I’m not leaving without her,” Adalwolf said. He trembled when Boneripper growled at him, but he stood his ground.

  Thanquol set a restraining paw on Boneripper’s leg. “I smell-scent way out,” he assured Adalwolf, brushing the side of his furry snout. “You smash snake-stones, I follow, we all escape-flee!”

  “A good plan,” Adalwolf told Thanquol. “But we’re not leaving without Hiltrude.”

  Thanquol’s teeth ground against each other, his claws clenching so tight they bit into his palms. “Forget-leave breeder-thing!” he snapped. “I buy-barter you much-much breeder-things! All breeder-things you want!”

  The mercenary smiled at Thanquol, a gesture he had learned the ratmen took as one of challenge. “We leave with Hiltrude or you can smash your own snake-stones!”

  “Stupid fool-meat!” Thanquol growled. He snapped his claws together. Before Adalwolf was even aware the huge beast was in motion, Boneripper sprang forwards and seized the man’s arm, lifting him off the ground. “Obey-listen or suffer-suffer!” Thanquol hissed.

  “Not without Hiltrude,” the mercenary insisted.

  Thanquol nodded to Boneripper. With a savage twist, the rat ogre broke Adalwolf’s arm
and dropped him back onto the floor. The warrior landed hard, screaming in pain as he clutched his shattered arm.

  “I lose-forget patience, slave-meat!” Thanquol told the moaning man. “Obey-listen!”

  “Get skinned!” Adalwolf snarled back, careful to bare all of his teeth at the fuming grey seer.

  Thanquol’s tail lashed furiously behind him, his fur bristling as raw rage rippled through his body. He thought about blasting the insufferable human with a burst of warp-lightning, but that would hardly get him out of the pyramid.

  “Fine-good,” Thanquol hissed through clenched fangs. “You lead-show safe path, smash-wreck all snake-stones, I take you to breeder-thing.” It took Thanquol a long time to realise that the coughing cry shuddering through Adalwolf’s body was laughter.

  “You think I’d trust you?” the mercenary scoffed. “How can you find Hiltrude in this maze?”

  “Same-same I find stupid slave-meat!” Thanquol raged. He tapped the side of his nose again. “I follow-find your scent. I can follow-find breeder-thing’s stink even better.”

  Adalwolf seemed to consider that for a moment. Even a dull-witted man-thing had to appreciate the greater senses of the skaven. It never ceased to amaze Thanquol how dull the human ability to smell was, though it went far to explain the reek of their cities.

  “How do I know you aren’t trying to trick me?” Adalwolf asked.

  “Because I can just have Boneripper smash-crush slave-meat’s empty skull!” Thanquol spat. The rat ogre took a menacing step towards Adalwolf.

  “Go ahead,” the mercenary mocked. “You’ll make a pretty pile of ash.”

  Thanquol swatted Boneripper with the head of his staff, moving the hulking beast away from Adalwolf. It was becoming clear to him that threats wouldn’t work with this deranged human. He’d lost all sense of self-preservation. The grey seer tried to remember everything he’d learned in his dealings with humans.

  He grinned as a particular bit of nonsense that seemed to have a strange effect on humans occurred to him. “You have my word,” he told Adalwolf.

  Again, the human’s body shuddered as choking laughter seized him. “You want me to trust you, I want van Sommerhaus’ pistols,” he said, pointing at Thanquol’s belt.

  The grey seer was tempted to let Boneripper squash the arrogant slave-thing, but his need made him relent. With every muscle twitching in rebellion to his action, Thanquol unfastened the weapons and tossed them over to the wounded man.

  “You need-need me,” Thanquol reminded Adalwolf. He tapped the side of his snout. “I can smell-find breeder-thing. Slave-meat cannot.”

  Gritting his teeth against the pain of his broken arm, Adalwolf stood and awkwardly buckled the pistol belt around his waist. “All right,” he conceded. “I need you and you need me. But I also need the gunpowder. And the bullets.”

  Snarling, Thanquol tossed the flask of gunpowder and the little leather bag of shot to the human. They’d wasted enough time negotiating. Any moment might see the lizardmen return and Thanquol wanted to be far away when they did. Besides, even if the human did have the pistols, Thanquol had Boneripper and his magic.

  Though to be on the safe side, he’d keep Boneripper close enough to hide behind if the human looked like he was going to use one of the pistols.

  * * *

  The patroon smiled as he studied the pile of gold bricks he’d been able to pry from the floor. If he could get even half of it back to Marienburg, he’d be able to fund an expedition to return for the rest. He’d be able to hire an entire army to scour the jungle of the walking reptiles, engage an entire clan of dwarf engineers to build a road back to the beach. It might take a full fleet to carry everything back, but he was sure when the guildmasters saw what he was able to bring back on his own, they’d certainly back the enterprise.

  Van Sommerhaus scowled as he considered exactly how he was going to get his treasure out of the pyramid. If only that idiot Adalwolf hadn’t wasted his time with the girl! His brawn would be a great boon to the patroon right now. Or if Schachter hadn’t been such a greedy bastard! Even split eighty-twenty there would be enough here to put the miserable old pirate up in a style far above his station in life! Van Sommerhaus would even welcome Thanquol back into his life right now. Surely even the underfolk understood the value of gold. Thanquol’s rats could drag the stuff away and then they could split the treasure at their leisure someplace far away from snakes and reptiles.

  Shaking his head in frustration, van Sommerhaus stopped dreaming of an easy way out. He’d have to carry the gold on his own. He wasn’t a man who enjoyed physical labour, it was an activity far below his class. But there wasn’t anything difficult about it either. After all, if the unwashed, illiterate stooges who infested the docks of Marienburg could do it, certainly a man of his intelligence could.

  He’d need to craft some kind of sling to drag the gold behind him. That would be the best way. He could pull far more than he could lift. Van Sommerhaus ran a hand along the tattered shreds of his elegant coat, bitterly feeling the frayed cuffs and buttonholes. No, he needed something a good bit sturdier.

  His eyes came to rest on one of the giant mummies stretched out along the shelves. Van Sommerhaus studied the wrappings with keen interest. They looked to be as thick as sail-cloth and about as tough as leather. Certainly they should be up to the task.

  Van Sommerhaus approached the serpentine mummy. Even over the smell of musty herbs there was still an ophidian reek about the thing. He pulled his shirt up over his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth as he contemplated the unpleasant task ahead of him.

  At last overcoming his repugnance, van Sommerhaus gripped the edge of one of the wrappings and started to pull it away from the shrivelled body beneath. He didn’t notice when his efforts caused the scab on his thumb to crack. Blood dripped down his finger where he had worn it raw during his prayers to Handrich.

  As a long strip of cloth came free, a bead of the patroon’s blood splattered against the desiccated husk of the giant serpent. He didn’t notice the way the ancient corpse absorbed the liquid, or the slight shudder that passed through its sinuous bulk.

  It was when van Sommerhaus turned to rip free a second strip of cloth that he discovered something was wrong. He had just set the first cloth down beside his plunder and was turning back to the mummy when he saw it move. There was nothing subtle about the motion, no chance to scoff and try to deny the evidence of his eyes. The head and neck of the mummified snake reared up off the shelf, rising into the air and staring down at him. Great emeralds shone from the skull of the snake, jewelled replacements for the eyes decay had claimed. Lifeless, yet gleaming with a hideous intelligence, the emeralds glared at the man who cowered below.

  Van Sommerhaus backed away from the ghastly mummy. He understood now what this place was—a tomb for the giant snakes the lizardmen kept in their temple. Reptiles sacred to their strange god, the great serpents were preserved in death as they were nurtured in life. Unfortunately, the lizardmen had preserved the monsters only too well.

  The patroon stumbled as he retreated, falling over the pile of gold he had ripped from the floor. Desperate, he seized a brick in each hand. Turning back to the towering serpent, he held the plundered treasure out to it.

  The giant serpent seemed to regard van Sommerhaus’ offering for an instant. Then great leathery folds of skin snapped open to either side of its withered head. Decayed jaws fell open and the mummified cobra lunged downward.

  Lukas van Sommerhaus shrieked as he vanished into the maw of the cobra, his dreams of wealth and power engulfed by the darkness of the serpent’s belly.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Prophet’s Test

  Adalwolf finished his inspection of the walls at the intersection, then waved his gruesome companions forwards with his torch. There was no mistaking the suspicion in Thanquol’s face despite his bestial countenance. The mercenary felt a twinge of disgust when he saw the grey seer prod Boneripper ahead of h
im on the chance that Adalwolf was trying to betray him and hadn’t reported one of the deadly snake-stones. It was an idea that seemed to occur to the ratman every hundred feet or so.

  Because of Thanquol’s paranoid precautions, whatever progress they were making in finding Hiltrude had slowed to a crawl. Adalwolf felt sorely tempted to abandon the skaven and find Hiltrude on his own, but he knew he couldn’t. The crafty grey seer was right. He’d never be able to find her on his own. He had to rely on the ratman’s sense of smell if he was going to rescue Hiltrude.

  If it wasn’t already too late.

  Boneripper slipped into the intersection, moving with the eerie smoothness and silence that was so incongruous with his huge frame. The rat ogre’s crimson eyes glared into the darkness, careful to avoid directly looking at Adalwolf and his torch lest the light spoil the monster’s night-vision.

  Thanquol waited several heartbeats, tapping out the time on the floor with his staff. When Boneripper failed to explode or crumble into powder, the grey seer came scurrying up to join him, clinging to his leg like a pilot fish to a shark’s fin.

  “Which way now?” Adalwolf asked the grey seer.

  Thanquol gave him a curious stare, the kind of look someone might give a feeble-minded idiot. He tugged at his whiskers and his eyes narrowed into crafty little slits. Adalwolf fought the urge to feed the monster his fist.

  “This way,” Thanquol told him, lifting his head and making a show of sniffing at the air. “Yes-yes, breeder-thing smell strong this way,” he elaborated, pointing the metal head of his staff down the left-hand turn in the corridor.

  “You’re sure?” Adalwolf said. “I’d hate for you to be wrong. I might miss some of those glyphs you’re so worried about if Hiltrude isn’t with me.”