Baring his fangs, Thanquol rounded on Boneripper, striking the rat ogre with his staff. “Idiot-meat!” he hissed at his bodyguard. “Find-fetch Chang Fang!”
Boneripper stared stupidly at Thanquol. The rat ogre didn’t budge. Instead he just turned his head and looked straight up into the rigging of the ship.
Thanquol cringed, expecting a ferocious assassin to drop down on him, eyes agleam with murder, daggers dripping with poison. He scurried around to take shelter behind Boneripper, hoping Chang Fang might be too busy tackling the rat ogre to kill the grey seer.
When he took a few breaths without a knife stabbing into his flesh, Thanquol became curious. Cautiously he peered around Boneripper’s bulk. Carefully he followed the rat ogre’s gaze upwards.
Fluttering from the mainmast was something that hadn’t been there before. It was a square of black cloth broken by the ghoulish image of a skull hovering over crossed blades. It took a moment for Thanquol to remember the flag the pirates they had taken the ship from had flown. This was similar to the banner the skaven had cut down and thrown into the sea, but the longer Thanquol stared at it, the more he began to notice disturbing differences from the flag he remembered. The black field wasn’t smooth cloth, it was furry, fashioned from the uncured hide of some animal. The blades weren’t colourful patches stitched into the flag, but were real knives tied against their furry setting. And the skull wasn’t sewn, it was a real skull set into the middle of the flag. And it wasn’t a human skull: it was the long, lean skull of a skaven!
Boneripper had found Chang Fang.
Thanquol stared at the gruesome Jolly Roger for a long time, a mixture of elation and horror pulsing through him. The assassin was dead, there was no need to fear him sneaking around the black guts of the ship waiting for his chance to murder Thanquol. That was a cause for celebration. Unfortunately, it left the disturbing question of what had killed Chang Fang.
The grey seer’s nose twitched as a rotten smell rose from the hold of the ship. His keen ears could hear a clumsy sort of shuffling beneath his feet. A cold chill ran down Thanquol’s legs as he vented the musk of fear. He knew that smell and he could guess what kind of feet made those stumbling sounds.
Turning, the grey seer saw a skeletal shape lumber out from the dark doorway set into the face of the quarterdeck. It grinned at him with a fleshless smile, a rusty cutlass clenched in its bony fist. The zombie pirate’s eye shone with an empty hunger, the same pitiless hatred of all things living it had shown when it had emerged from the fort in the swamp.
Thanquol understood now why he hadn’t been attacked in the swamp. After the skaven fled, the zombies had followed their trail back to the beach. In life they had been pirates, in death they had been abandoned to the stinking jungles of Lustria. At least until the skaven had brought a new ship to them.
* * *
Adalwolf stood atop a little grassy mound. It was an effort just to stand now, further flight from the lizardmen was something that almost brought tears of laughter to him as he thought about it. His back was swollen where the razordon spines had struck him, the venom in the wounds drawing every insect in the jungle to him. His broken arm was completely numb by contrast, a dead icy weight against his chest. More than the physical pain, it was the fatigue of his soul that crippled him. He had no purpose now. There would be no reckoning with the toad-creature, no revenge for Hiltrude.
Skinks surrounded him on every side now. Wherever he turned he could see their scaly blue bodies, little arrows nocked in the strings of their short bows, their unblinking eyes staring back at him. Even if he had the strength to go on, there was no escape from this place.
At first he thought it was the fever playing tricks on his mind when he saw the trees start to change. It was as though some omnipotent force was folding the jungle, parting it like a gambler shuffling cards. The jungle swirled around him, churning and undulating like an angry sea. The skinks vanished, the trees vanished, the thickets and saw grass. In the twinkling of an eye, everything around him changed, only the grassy mound beneath his feet had stayed the same. It was an anchor of reality that secured his reeling mind as he tried to cope with the impossible thing he had experienced.
Diethelm had expounded upon the weird qualities of the path they had followed through the jungle.
Now Adalwolf knew the priest had been right. He felt very small when he considered the kind of power it must take for even the mightiest wizard to bend space and time in such a fashion.
His new surroundings were a sandy strip along the shore of the sea. The smell of brine overwhelmed the stink of the jungle and even the harsh light of the sun seemed somehow cleaner without the leaves of the jungle filtering it.
A bitter joy flashed through Adalwolf’s heart when he saw a distant speck bobbing at anchor far down the beach. It was a ship, he couldn’t be mistaken. He almost cried to see the sight, the hope that he had longed to find. But it was too late for that now. He would never leave this place. His bones would lie in the jungle with those of Hiltrude, forgotten by the world.
Adalwolf turned to face the green wall of the jungle and for the first time he was aware that he was not alone. A phalanx of saurus warriors, even bigger than the ones they had fought in the jungle, stood watching him with the same passionless interest as the skinks he had left behind.
But he only gave scant notice to the fearsome lizardmen. Adalwolf’s interest was almost instantly captivated by the bloated frog-like thing that squatted upon a golden dais in the midst of the saurus warriors. The slann’s eyes were limpid pools of amber as they studied the mercenary.
Adalwolf relaxed his hold on the sword. This close to the mage-priest, even his mad lust for revenge couldn’t make him ignore the amphibian’s aura of power. A mouse would have better chances against a dragon than he would fighting such a being.
The slann’s eyes narrowed with interest as Adalwolf lowered his weapon. A voice, neither harsh nor soothing, echoed through his brain. It promised succour. His wounds would be tended, his hurts healed, the fever driven from his body, the venom drained from his veins. All he had to do was submit, to accept his part in the Great Math. There was no need for his sum to be negated prematurely.
Adalwolf shook his head, trying to drive the voice out of his head. He glared at the bloated slann. It was offering him life, but that wasn’t something he wanted anymore.
Lord Tlaco stared back at the unknown quotient. The warm-blood had a kind of intelligence, but it had no concept of the Great Math. What it wanted and what it didn’t want had nothing to do with the harmonies of the Old Ones. The mage-priest shifted the spots on his skin. The skink perched on the dais beside the slann quickly interpreted the changes in his skin. Lifting its head, the skink chirruped and hissed to Lord Tlaco’s temple guard.
Almost as a single entity, the temple guard dropped their swords and pulled heavy clubs from their snakeskin belts. They stalked away from Lord Tlaco’s dais and marched towards the grassy mound and the sickly creature standing on it.
Adalwolf’s fist tightened about the sword in his hand as he saw the lizardmen marching towards him. He knew he couldn’t hope to fight them any more than he could hope to fight their master. They would beat him into submission, drag him off for whatever purpose the slann needed him for. There was no hope of victory here.
But there was still a way to cheat his enemies and deny them their triumph.
Lord Tlaco actually leaned forwards in his seat, his skin spots opening wide as something like amazement flushed through the slann’s body. Before his ordered mind could come to grips with the absolute madness of the warm-blood it was already too late to stop it. Adalwolf brought the serrated edge of his sword against his neck and with one savage pull cut open his carotid artery.
The dying human toppled from the mound, rolling against the feet of the temple guard. The lizardmen knelt beside the body, staring back at Lord Tlaco, looking to the slann for guidance. The mage-priest slumped back into his seat. He knew f
ar too little about the anatomy of decaying algorithms to repair the damage Adalwolf had done. Given a little time, Lord Tlaco would be able to telepathically confer with another slann who had contemplated the biology of lower phase organisms. By that time, however, the human would be long dead.
Unable to understand the self-negation of its unknown quotient, Lord Tlaco ordered his temple guard to gather the body. Dissection was unlikely to yield the results the slann required to explain the decision Adalwolf had made, the choice to kill Xiuhcoatl instead of Thanquol. Still, the mage-priest would be thorough in his experiment. The condemnation or vindication of the cult of Sotek might yet be found within Lord Tlaco’s results.
Grey Seer Thanquol scurried up into the Black Mary’s rigging, terror throbbing through his brain. The pirate captain stared at him with its decayed face, worms dripping from the corners of its mouth and poking from the gashes in its forehead. The zombie pointed a fleshless talon at the grey seer and its undead crew began to shuffle out from the shadow of the quarterdeck.
“Boneripper!” Thanquol shrieked down to his bodyguard. “Kill-slay! Kill-slay!”
The rat ogre lumbered into the advancing pack of zombies, growling at the undead pirates. He brought one of his massive claws sweeping around, tearing apart a zombie at its waist and hurling the thing’s torso against the rail of the ship. A second flash of his claws opened another zombie from groin to chin, decayed innards tumbling from the ghastly wound to slop across the deck. The rat ogre tore at a third pirate, wrenching both its arms clean from their sockets and knocking the creature from off its feet.
An eager gleam crept into Thanquol’s eyes as he clung to the rigging. These things were no match for Boneripper! The rat ogre would quickly slaughter the decayed humans and this time the damned pirates would stay dead! There was no way a pack of stumbling corpses could match the strength and swiftness of a rat ogre trained by the master killers of Clan Eshin!
Even as his spirits started to rise, Thanquol’s tail twitched in fear. The zombies Boneripper had attacked were still moving! The legless torso was crawling along the deck towards the rat ogre, the second zombie staggered onwards with its guts dragging behind it, the armless husk flopped and slithered like some hideous worm. More zombies shambled out from the ship’s cabin, silently obeying the pointing talon of their captain. The deck itself creaked and groaned as zombies down in the hold pounded against the planks, clawing their way up from the darkness to join the attack.
Boneripper roared and waded into the ever increasing horde. Heads were smashed into paste by his fists, bodies were ripped asunder by his claws, bones snapped between his fangs and still the zombies came, relentless and remorseless. They slashed at the rat ogre with corroded swords, hacked at him with decayed axes and stabbed at him with rusty spears. Boneripper could easily dodge the clumsy attacks, but he couldn’t avoid them all. Bit by bit, the pirates were overwhelming the giant brute.
The splintering of wood announced the success of the zombies down in the hold tearing their way up through the deck. Stiffly the creatures pulled themselves up through the ragged holes they had torn, heedless of the slivers of wood that stabbed into their flesh as they emerged. For all their ungainly motion, Thanquol was impressed at how quickly a sizable mob of zombies rose from the hold to surround his bodyguard.
The grey seer bruxed his fangs. He’d hoped to let Boneripper settle with the undead, just in case any of the things decided to come back and haunt their destroyer. The example of Vorghun of Praag was a little too fresh in Thanquol’s mind to make him especially eager to test his luck against the living dead. One reanimated liche hungry for his soul was enough to give him nightmares.
Now, however, he saw that he had no choice. He could either help Boneripper fight the zombies, or he could let the pirates overcome his bodyguard. Once that happened, he knew their next target would be himself. Briefly the idea of swimming back to shore came to Thanquol, but he quickly dismissed it with a shudder. He’d take his chances with ghosts and wraiths.
Flicking the bit of warpstone from his cheek pouch with his tongue, Grey Seer Thanquol bit down on the little rock, feeling its magical energies course through his veins. A green light blazed from his eyes as the intoxicating flush of power roared through his brain. He snickered at his own fears of only a moment before. What did he have to fear from ghosts! If any of these things dared try to haunt him he’d blast their souls back to Nagash the Foul and grind their bones into dust!
Thanquol glared down at the pirate captain. Clinging to the rigging with one paw, he extended the other and pointed at the zombie. A shrill, snarling incantation scraped the air. There was a burst of light about Thanquol’s hand, then the pirate captain was enveloped in flame! Thanquol chittered evilly as he watched the zombie stumble about, a walking torch. The cutlass fell to the deck as the arm holding it was burned from the captain’s body, the rest of the zombie’s remains slumping to the deck soon after.
Cackling with glee, Thanquol turned his attention to the twice-dead captain’s crew. Pointing his claw at another zombie, the grey seer caused it to also be engulfed in green fire. The creature bumbled into one of its fellows, the flames from its body scorching the other zombie as well. His brain roaring with the intoxicating rush of power, Thanquol started hurling spells down into the undead.
With their ranks being depleted by Thanquol’s magic, the zombies lost their numerical advantage against Boneripper. The rat ogre rallied, leaping back into the combat with renewed vigour. Once again, the torn and mangled debris of the undead were hurled across the deck. Whole or dismembered, Boneripper attacked the monsters with equal ferocity, even clawing at the burning zombies when they staggered blindly towards him.
Thanquol grinned, baring his fangs in a wicked smile. The undead pirates were no menace now. Soon the ship would be his. He would sail back to the Under-Empire in triumph and never again smell the jungle stink of Lustria!
The grey seer relented in his sorcerous assault on the zombies, content now to simply watch Boneripper finish the job. Even with the slight assistance provided by warpstone, Thanquol didn’t like to over exert his powers. It was an unseemly abuse of the gifts the Horned Rat had bestowed upon him.
Thanquol laughed as he watched some of the zombies he’d set on fire staggering across the deck. The blind stupid things didn’t even notice Boneripper until the rat ogre tore them apart! Other zombies stumbled into each other or cracked their heads against the mast. One of the burning pirates even fell into one of the holes the zombies had torn in the deck, pitching headfirst into the hold below.
A thrill of horror banished the last invigorating effects of the warpstone from Thanquol’s brain. A sudden nagging memory rose in his mind, a memory of the long voyage across the sea and how Thanquol had paced the ship from top to bottom during that time. Sheer boredom had made him learn every nook and cranny on the vessel. Now that knowledge screamed at him, screamed at him with such panic that he vented his glands.
The hole the burning zombie fell down was right above the Black Mary’s powder magazine!
Squealing in fright, Thanquol scrambled as high as he could in the rigging, then dived into the sea. He plunged deep into the warm waters, so deep it was a fight for him to claw his way back to the surface. When his head was again above water and he’d gulped enough air to satisfy his starved lungs, Thanquol glanced back at the ship.
The Black Mary was still there, bobbing upon the waves. Thanquol was just starting to curse himself for allowing a mistaken memory to throw him into a panic when the ship suddenly exploded in a violent fireball.
EPILOGUE
Grey Seer Thanquol sputtered and coughed as he pulled his soggy mass over the side of the rowboat. He shook his entire body, trying to fling the worst of the sea water from his fur, then slumped wearily against the gunwales. A cunning grin spread across his face. For all of his ordeals, the Horned One had not abandoned him. How else to explain the providential appearance of this boat—hurled intact
from the fiery death of the Black Mary. Thanquol had spotted it almost as soon as he’d fought his way back to the surface after his daring dive into the sea. Like a drowned whelp bobbing about in a water trough the boat had drifted away from the burning debris of the pirate ship.
It had taken him only a few terrified minutes to claw his way through the waves to reach the little boat. At any instant he expected to feel the sharp jaws of a shark tugging at his leg, but if any of the predators were about they didn’t notice the lone ratman swimming above them and he reached the boat safe if a bit soaked.
Thinking of sharks made Thanquol snap out of his fatigue. In a panic he yanked his dangling tail out of the water, stroking the naked, scaly extremity to ensure himself that nothing had nibbled at it. Breathing a gasp of relief, he slumped back into the bottom of the boat. He was safe for the moment. Chang Fang was dead. The zombies were dead—well, more dead than they had been. Xiuhcoatl was dead. All of his enemies were gone to their most deserved rewards. Once more, Grey Seer Thanquol had emerged triumphant, his genius carrying him to glories no other ratman would dare dream of!
Although, Thanquol thought as he forgot his enemies and considered his own situation, there wasn’t much glory around. He was wet and alone in a little boat bobbing about in a shark-infested sea thousands of food-stops from even the most remote outpost of skavendom. The closest land was a reptile-ridden hell of biting insects, tropical diseases and withering heat. As he took stock of the situation, he mumbled a curse too low for the Horned Rat to hear. There was a skin of water stuffed under the benches in the boat but not even a sniff of food. Thanquol’s belly growled at him as he made the observation and he could feel his mouth watering at the very thought of food. There hadn’t been any time to really stop and eat during the mad race to reach the ship before Chang Fang. Thanquol had never been much for privation, even when necessity called for it.
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