Ignoring Thanquol’s demands to leave the dying beast alone, Boneripper leapt on top of the reptile’s body, scrambling around so that he could grab the monster’s leg at the hip, well away from the flashing claws. Grunting with effort, the rat ogre locked both of his arms around the offending limb and began to pull.
Thanquol stopped calling on his bodyguard to leave the carnosaur alone. Instead he watched the gory spectacle play itself out, earnestly hoping all the while that Boneripper would be a lot calmer when he was finished.
In fact, the grey seer was thinking it might be a good idea to start being nicer to Boneripper. It would be somewhat safer that way.
They could feel the jungle watching them. At first Adalwolf laid the sensation down to his own fearful imagination, but as he and Hiltrude penetrated deeper into the forest, he knew it was something more. Every hair on his body was crawling with apprehension. It was more than simple imagination. He could see that Hiltrude felt it too, but decided not to add to her fear by voicing his own concerns.
The fight with the soldier-lizards had made a sinister impression. Wounded and alone in a strange land, even the smaller lizardmen that had served in the Temple of the Serpent would have been enough of a challenge for them. Adalwolf knew they had been lucky to survive one encounter with the saurus warriors. If they would live, they would need to keep their wits about them, try to avoid drawing the attention of the reptiles.
Even before the strange sensation of being watched, the mercenary didn’t find that a likely prospect. The image of the toad-creature’s army surrounding the ruins of Quetza was too fresh in his mind. A legion of the powerful soldier-lizards had emerged from the jungle to encircle the city. There could be hundreds, even thousands of the monsters prowling the jungle looking for them, every one far more at home in the savage rainforests than the humans. It was only a matter of time before the lizardmen found them.
Their one hope was the black drops of blood they followed. Adalwolf was certain now that the trail could only belong to Boneripper. Anything else would have died from such blood loss but the rat ogre was too stupid and too stubborn to realise the fact. Perhaps whatever sorcerous arts had allowed the underfolk to breed such a beast had also endowed it with a super-normal vitality. Adalwolf didn’t know, he only knew that the beast lived and while it lived it gave them hope: a trail to follow that would lead them to Thanquol’s escape route out of this green hell.
It was a horrible thought to understand that their only prayer of salvation lay in the treacherous paws of Thanquol. Adalwolf would have rather entrusted his life to one of the merwyrms that guarded the shores of Ulthuan, but there was no other choice. They could follow Thanquol and hope to either steal or share his way out of Lustria or they could simply sit down and wait for the lizardmen to catch them.
At least there was no sign that Thanquol had any help other than Boneripper. When they had followed the trail back to the skaven encampment, Adalwolf had feared the worst. The air had been so thick with the smell of ratmen, he’d expected an entire swarm of the fiends to be waiting for them. Instead they had found a half-dozen ratkin ripped apart in a variety of ghastly ways he was certain only Boneripper could manage. It seemed Thanquol had had a very final falling out with those minions who had escaped from Quetza.
The two humans had lingered in the ghoulish clearing only long enough to scavenge supplies from the underfolk’s stores. Hiltrude had become sick at the very idea of carrying the ratmen’s provisions, much less the thought of eating them. The most appealing things appeared to be the pulpy innards of enormous beetles. The menu only got worse from there. It had taken all of Adalwolf’s skills of persuasion to induce the courtesan to pick up the ghastly fodder, assuring her they would only eat the filth as a last resort.
Even worse than the food was the water. The ratmen had used an assortment of increasingly foul-smelling bladders to carry their water. Adalwolf tried to convince himself the abominable-looking things hadn’t been stitched together from the kidneys of dead skaven. The bladders gave the water inside them a pungent reek and an even more loathsome taste, but the mercenary knew from experience that a few hours under the Lustrian sun would make them drink even this filth and praise the gods for providing it.
From the encampment, they followed Boneripper’s trail deeper into the jungle. It was impossible to be certain after the peculiarities of the path they had followed from the beach, but Adalwolf had the impression they were travelling in a largely southward direction. He was thankful for the rat ogre’s savage facility at tearing apart the foliage, making their own progress much easier. Even so, he was careful to set a pace that both he and Hiltrude would be able to maintain. Exhausting themselves wouldn’t let them catch Thanquol.
Several times the trail made by Boneripper would cross over into a larger trail. Adalwolf could tell from the smell that the wider trail had been cut by a great number of ratmen. Perhaps it marked the way Thanquol’s expedition had journeyed to Quetza. But if so, why didn’t the grey seer stick to it? If he feared pursuit, clearly he would have compelled Boneripper to be more careful about hacking a trail through the jungle.
The only answer Adalwolf could come up with was that Thanquol was looking for something, something important enough that he wouldn’t leave Lustria without it. The infrequent returns to the old path his ratmen had made were perhaps done so that he could regain his bearings. The mercenary was thankful for whatever delay made the grey seer shun a straight run to wherever he was going. Anything that slowed him down was to the advantage of the desperate humans who followed him.
Days passed before they saw a more tangible sign of their quarry beyond the occasional footprint or some trinket Thanquol had decided was too heavy to continue carrying. It was also a grim reminder that even as they hunted the ratman, other things hunted them in turn.
The carcass of the giant reptile was strewn across the trail, impaled upon the bamboo trees that flanked the left side of the path. Adalwolf shuddered to see the thing, reminded of the great carnosaur they had encountered so long ago. There was no question as to the thing’s death—one of its hind legs had been torn from its socket. Even the robust vigour of a carnosaur wasn’t able to overcome that sort of mutilation.
Adalwolf was surprised to find a saddle strapped to the reptile’s back. He smiled bitterly as he noted the gold adornments dangling from the snakeskin harness. There was wealth enough in this hideous place to choke every king in the Old World and every bit of it was as useless to them as a volume of Tarradash was to an orc.
Some little way from the dead carnosaur, they found the corpse of a Lizardman, one of the hulking warrior breed. Its body was strangely burnt and there was a sulphurous reek rising from it.
“Looks like Thanquol’s not so timid about using his magic now,” Adalwolf said.
Hiltrude shuddered and turned away from the grisly corpse. She covered her face in her hands. “It’s hopeless!” she sobbed. “Those things are going to catch us!”
Adalwolf reached his arm around her, trying to soothe her despair. He winced as she pressed against him, her shoulder brushing the broken limb tied against his chest. “Maybe they like the taste of rat better than us,” he said. “We haven’t seen any of them in days. Maybe that’s because they have been bothering Thanquol instead.”
“But if they do catch him!” Hiltrude cried. “He’s the only one that might know how to get out of here!”
Adalwolf stroked her tangled hair. “One worry at a time,” he told her. His eyes hardened as he looked over her shoulder. Gently, he nudged her away from the side of the trail, turning her around so that she wouldn’t see what he had seen.
The mercenary repressed a shiver as they limped back down the trail. It hadn’t been the sight of the little cannibal lizards that had so upset him, though he had seen their hideous capabilities firsthand. No, it had been the way they stared back at him, dozens of sets of unblinking eyes watching him with an air of rapt attention. It was more than the way an
animal watched prey. There had been a chilling sense of purpose, of intelligence in that stare.
Once again, Adalwolf thought of the tremendous power he had felt rising from the toad-creature. He wondered what it was doing and if it had used some of its magic to make the vermin of the jungle its spies.
* * *
Lord Tlaco sat upon his dais, unheeding of the swaying rhythm of his strange chariot. Dispensing with the ancient magics that kept the golden dais in defiance of gravity, the slann allowed his temple guard to conduct it through the jungle. The brawny saurus warriors bent their backs beneath the long bronze rods upon which the dais rested. They moved in eerie unison, each saurus mirroring his opposite as they marched through the primordial forest.
The slann devoted a fraction of its awareness upon his surroundings, using a portion of its knowledge of the Great Math to bend trees away from the path of its minions, to drain ponds and fill gullies that might otherwise interfere with the march. Beasts of the jungle recoiled from the mental call of the mage-priest, or else came in their crawling, slithering, hopping multitudes to obey the slann’s command. A numberless legion spread through the jungle, peering under every bush, listening at every thicket, tasting the air of every path with forked tongues. All were looking for the fragile warm-blood Lord Tlaco sought, the unknown quotient that must be quantified to explain the equation.
Many were the eyes of Lord Tlaco, but there was a limit to what the tiny minds of tree frogs and mud snakes could accomplish, whatever their numbers. The swarming reptiles of the jungle could be trusted to find the decaying algorithm, but they could not be depended upon to contain it.
The blemishes on the slann’s skin shifted and expanded. The pale skink attendant crouching beside Lord Tlaco stood in response, the fold of skin at the top of its head fluttering like the signal flag of a warship. The skink gestured and hissed at the slann’s retinue, imparting to them the commands it had read in the mage-priest’s shifting hue.
Lizardmen hissed in reply, a rolling susurrus that crawled through the jungle like a primal force. Birds fled from the trees as the sound of the reptiles washed over them, monkeys scrambled to the forest floor, panthers retreated still deeper into their shadowy lairs. The simple beasts of the jungle knew that sound. The lords of Lustria were on the hunt.
Like waves breaking upon a rocky shore, Lord Tlaco’s retinue evaporated into the jungle, spreading out to scour the forest for the specimen their master required. Soon, only the slann, his temple guard and a few skink attendants remained.
The mage-priest made a slight motion of his hand and his small company began to march once more. There was neither chance or coincidence to one who truly understood the Great Math, only a question of probabilities, greater and lesser. For the unknown quotient to escape the slann’s hunters was a lesser probability. However, it was one that Lord Tlaco was not going to ignore.
Anything with purpose could be predicted according to the Laws of the Old Ones. A decaying algorithm was still a fragment of harmony, a value within the Great Math. Lord Tlaco knew where the specimen was going. He knew why and how.
The slann also knew the warm-blood would never get there.
Even the least probabilities were against him.
* * *
Sopping wet, Chang Fang dropped onto the deck of the Black Mary and began to wring out the dripping tatters of his cloak. The assassin bruxed his fangs in annoyance. He had Grey Seer Thanquol to thank for all of his misfortunes. Thanquol and that stupidly loyal rat ogre of his! If he’d known what trouble that brute was going to cause, he would have slit its throat on the voyage over! That worthless conjure-rat Shen Tsinge too!
Chang Fang tried to calm himself. He’d reached the ship well ahead of Thanquol. That was all that mattered. It would take only a few hours to get the vessel ready and then he’d be able to leave Lustria behind. With a little luck, the currents might take the ship someplace connected to the Under-Empire. Still, even if he never saw another skaven again, he could at least comfort himself with the image of Thanquol rotting away in the jungle.
Maybe the grey seer would even get as far as the beach. Chang Fang almost squealed in delight imagining the look on Thanquol’s face when he saw his only hope of escape sailing off over the horizon—without him!
The assassin clapped his paws together and looked about him, wondering where he should start to get the ship ready to sail. He twitched his whiskers in confusion when he noticed that the mainsail was already raised. Suddenly an annoyance he hadn’t really thought about in his frantic swim to reach the ship before Thanquol occurred to him.
Who had moved the boats from the beach? And who had fastened them into their places against the ship’s hull?
Chang Fang drew the knives from the folds of his cloak and stared suspiciously at his suddenly sinister surroundings. He heard a plank creak somewhere beneath him, then another and another. Every hair on his body shivered as a decayed, putrid stench rose from the Black Mary’s hold.
There was something uncomfortably familiar about that smell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Escape from Lustria
Hiltrude could feel her heart pounding against her ribs, feeling as though it were trying to hammer its way out of her body. Her lungs felt like they were on fire and her legs felt like lead. She was certain that every step she took would be her last, but somehow her fear made her go on.
Any hope that the lizardmen would ignore them in favour of tracking down Thanquol had vanished. For hours they had heard the reptiles scrambling through the undergrowth, following them just out of eyesight. Sometimes a strange chirp or bark would sound from the trees, rising with a sinister sense of purpose that made Hiltrude’s skin crawl. She knew the sounds weren’t the idle chatter of monkeys or the cries of birds, but the calls of skink hunters shadowing their prey.
Sometimes they would catch a fleeting glimpse of blue-scaled stalkers moving through the trees. Such instances seemed deliberate to Hiltrude, as though the lurking lizardmen were revealing themselves in order to frighten the two humans away from a particular path. In their sorry condition, wracked with fever, tired from days of trudging through the sweltering heat, sickened by the abominable rations of the ratmen, the two fugitives didn’t answer whatever challenge the skinks offered. Instead they turned, trying to find a different way through the jungle.
Whatever hope they had of keeping to Thanquol’s trail was lost now. Forced from the grey seer’s path by the encroaching lizardmen, they now made their way almost at random through the rainforest. Hiltrude couldn’t escape the idea that the lizardmen were guiding them somewhere, herding them like cattle towards some definite end. It was a thought that made her gag in horror, memories of Xiuhcoatl and the altar atop the pyramid rising in her mind.
Adalwolf’s fever was worse, his movements reduced to a pained stumble. More and more he was forced to lean upon Hiltrude for support. The courtesan didn’t begrudge his weakness, she only hoped that she would be able to find the strength within her to bring them both through their ordeal safely. That cold, practical side of her that had so dominated her life was only a tiny voice now, chiding her for not leaving the sick man and taking her chances on her own. She didn’t listen to that ugly part of her soul. Adalwolf hadn’t left her behind. Even if she felt nothing for him, that alone would be reason enough to stay by his side.
The chirps and barks of the skinks rose from the bushes around them once more. There could not be many of the reptiles, Hiltrude thought, otherwise the creatures would have already overwhelmed them. Why they did not attack with poisoned arrows and javelins as they had the ratmen, she did not know. That there was some sinister meaning in their reluctance to attack she was certain. The lizardmen were leading them somewhere. But where?
They soon had their answer. Driven onwards by the chirps of the skinks, the two fugitives jogged down the game trail they had been following, mustering such speed as was still left in their bodies. Beyond the limit of her endurance, Hiltru
de collapsed when the trail suddenly opened into a grassy clearing. Some giant of the forest had once stood here until the elements had finally brought it crashing down. Rotten piles of wood showed where the carcass of the tree had collapsed long ago. Now, at the centre of the clearing, a green-leafed successor grew.
Adalwolf crashed to the ground beside Hiltrude. He landed on his broken arm, a pained scream scraping through his clenched teeth. Hiltrude rolled him onto his back, trying to ease his suffering.
A louder shriek boomed across the clearing, a sound at once magnificent and terrible. It was like the roar of steel in a furnace and the groan of a warship upon a troubled sea. The sound pulsed through the ears of the two humans, throbbing through their bodies with a sting like electricity. They lifted their heads, Adalwolf’s broken arm forgotten as they focused upon the source of the awful scream.
Within the branches of the lonely tree, something moved. They had not noticed the reptile before, so still had it been, its green scales blending into the leaves around it. Now, however, the beast had been aroused. It crept along the thick branch upon which it stood with great crawling hops of its body. Two short, clawed legs let the reptile grip the tree, the rest of its body rising in a lurching, hunchbacked fashion. When the creature reached the edge of the branch, it sat for a moment, studying the two humans with a glazed, hungry cast in its dull yellow eyes.
The reptile crouched upon the branch for a time, looming over them like some scaly vulture. Then the folds of its wrinkled body opened wide, snapping into great leathery pinions. The winged reptile threw back its beaked head, its warbling shriek again pulsing through the jungle. Swiftly the reptile launched itself from the branch, soaring down from the tree, its eyes fixed upon the prey the skinks had driven to it.
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