The two halves of Sculler’s Gate closed upon the ironclad with tectonic force. Shrieks of tortured metal rent the air as Grimnir’s Thunder buckled and distorted, its indomitable hull slowly and fatally crushed between the jaws of the skull-faced cliffs. Roth forced himself to watch as secondary explosions cooked off within the dwarf craft’s gun decks. Above the dying ironclad, the dirigible was doing its best to drive off the monster, twin cannons spitting at the pale-skinned behemoth’s head.
Dwarf engineers were diving into the waters from the vaulted archways that lined the Thunder’s sides, but the skaven leviathan was not done with them yet. The pallid beast writhed and wriggled, bursts of electricity pulsing from the brass globes at its flanks. Around the ironclad’s water-line the blackened bodies of would-be escapees floated and bobbed like dead fish.
As the Heldenhammer and its allies steered their craft toward the two gaps left by the ironclad’s disastrous charge, Roth desperately searched for a glimpse of Red Brokk. The lenses of his spyglass blurred for a moment before flicking into focus on the master engineer, who was hurriedly stripping to the waist. His bright red hair had been moulded up into a great coxcomb that dripped with thick engine grease, and pair of fire axes was locked around his neck like a yoke.
Roth shook his head in dismay. If what he knew about dwarf culture was true, Red Brokk was already dead. A dwarf who had suffered unbearable humiliation would take the Slayer oath and attempt to find a worthy death in battle; a death so glorious it erased the taint of his shame forever. Losing two ships to the Dreadfleet was clearly more than the master engineer could bear.
The dwarf dirigible floated nearer and nearer, its cargo chains dangling down within arm’s reach. A spark of hope flared in Roth’s breast as Red Brokk grabbed hold of a chain and gave it a good hard yank.
The dirigible floated up and away, but instead of escaping the battle Brokk launched himself backwards from the balustrade of the Thunder, swinging in over the docking vault of his crumpling warship and then back out like a pendulum. He released the chain at the apex of its sweeping arc, flying through the air towards the skaven leviathan like a living projectile.
As was to be expected from a master engineer, Gunnarsson had judged his trajectory perfectly. Roth saw the dwarf unlock the fire axes from around his neck in mid-flight, and just as he struck the beast’s fleshy flank he hacked bloody holes into the leviathan’s flaccid and wrinkled flesh. It was an impressive display of fury, but he might as well have been trying to kill a mountain with a pickaxe for all the good he was doing.
“Go for the engines, Brokk!” shouted Roth, though he knew he could not be heard over the thunder of battle. “Take it apart from the inside!”
The maddened dwarf hacked away, achieving little but to cover himself in rank blood and rotten pus from head to toe. The blubbery flesh of the sea monster was becoming more and more difficult to negotiate, and the dwarf’s tenuous foothold on its flabby folds of skin went from under him more than once.
As Roth watched, a score of elven longbolts, each the size of a spear, thudded into the beast’s blubbery flank. The Seadrake was carving around the face of Sculler’s Gate, its massed bolt throwers adding their pinpoint accuracy to the fight.
“Nice try, princeling,” muttered the captain, “but it’ll take more than that to kill it.”
It was then that realisation dawned. The bolts were not intended to slay the undead monstrosity, but rather to give the dwarf a last chance at retribution. The spear-like shafts were perfectly positioned as rungs, rungs that led from Red Brokk’s position on the beast’s flank to the open scaffolding that formed its gunnery decks.
Brokk grasped at the gift the elf warship had given him, bodily swinging himself over to the nearest bolt and jumping clumsily to the next one along. Half a dozen undead ratmen skittered out from the scaffolding, leaping across the bolts towards him with their rusted blades held in fleshless jaws.
Another volley of white-shafted bolts shot through the air, perilously close to the coxcombed Slayer. Five of the verminous warriors were transfixed to the side of their monstrous warship, wriggling like stuck insects before falling apart in a confusion of rotten bones. Roaring with bloodlust, Brokk brained the last of them with the edge of his fire axe before clambering along the white rungs sprouting from the monster’s open flank and into the rough scaffolding beyond.
A looming cliff suddenly blocked the dwarf’s one-man crusade from view as the Heldenhammer passed into one of the gaps left by the Thunder’s passage. Willing the dwarf to succeed as he turned back to the warship’s fore, Roth saw something that left him breathless.
A great spiral vortex swept across the horizon, impossibly large, funnelling downwards and around into a bottomless black void. Jagged triangular teeth of white rock whirled within it, reminding the captain of the mouth of a shark. Thousands of tiny white dots infested its depths. Human skulls, thought Roth, his skin prickling.
The growling rumble of the vortex’s guts shook Roth to his bones. His head swam at its sheer magnitude. Squinting, he could just make out ragged purple-black sails drifting towards them through the mist at its edge.
The maelstrom. And all that stood between Roth and its hungry gullet was the lord of the Dreadfleet himself.
A blinding beam of light slammed into the Heldenhammer’s foremast with the force of a thunderbolt. The iron-hard waist of the mast was reduced to cinders in an instant by the searing heat of the bolt. Roth hit the deck as the remnants of the mast toppled over into the water, a tangle of rigging dragging dozens of crewmen screaming to their deaths. The scent of burning wood mingled with the coppery tang of blood.
Roth jumped back to his feet, sprinting over to the side of the warship. The Nehekharan galley was bearing down on them with a terrible inevitability. No mortal oarsman could hope to fight against the current of the maelstrom and win, but the Zandrian warship was propelled by the dead, and its master had his prey firmly in its sights. The Heldenhammer, badly wounded and at the mercy of the currents, would stand little chance against the war galley should its beast-headed statuary take their halberds to its flanks.
Without warning the Swordfysh crashed through the waves at the edge of the titanic whirlpool, curving around the Heldenhammer’s flank and heading on an intercept course. A thick beam of energy leapt out from the giant gem at the war galley’s stern, burning its way across the Swordfysh’s hull. Within moments the entire front half of the warship was covered in coruscating white flame.
As it carved towards its foe, the Swordfysh was raised up high on a crest of a rippling wall of water. The saw-toothed ram at its prow jutted downwards with deadly intent. The warship came crashing down upon the galley’s deck like a hurled spear, its hardened bone ram smashing apart the Nehekharan vessel’s statue-lined flank and juddering through into the hull beneath. Hundreds of skeletal crewmen were washed overboard by the deluge. When the tidal wave subsided, the two mighty warships were locked together by the force of the impact, the Swordfysh’s jag-toothed ram impaled up to its hilt.
“Yes!” shouted Roth. “Aranessa, you angel!”
Cackling, Roth forced himself to concentrate on the Reaver as it bore down upon them. His old flame had given him the chance he needed, though it was very likely she had doomed herself in the process.
* * *
Captain Saltspite span the wheel of the Swordfysh as hard as she could to port, leaning into it so that her full weight pulled the rudder to one side. She almost managed to convince herself it was the rudder that was guiding her headlong plunge towards the war galley below, but in her heart, she knew there was more to it than that.
The black-hulled warship slammed home ram-first into the topdeck of the Nehekharan vessel. The Swordfysh shivered like a frenzied beast as it buried its jagged blade deep in the body of its foe. Aranessa crowed in triumph. That had been better than a sword-kill, better by far.
The two mighty warships floundered in the water, locked together by the barbs of
the pirate ship’s ram. A shadow fell across Aranessa’s face for a second, and she leapt backwards as a halberd the size of an ironwood tree crashed through the deck where she had been standing. The crocodile-headed statue that had lined the flank of the war galley was staring right at her. Suddenly being in such close proximity to the Nehekharan vessel didn’t seem such a good idea.
Walking down the shaft of the massive halberd was a robed figure blazing with a strange light. Despite its regal bearing and the shining crown atop its scalp the creature was the ugliest, most wizened thing Aranessa had ever seen. Parchment skin hung in dry folds from a sunken skull, and a gap-toothed jaw worked up and down as guttural syllables spilled out in an ancient tongue. It extended a gnarled claw, and glittering sandstone powder drizzled from between its bony fingers. Where the sand fell, the timbers of the Swordfysh petrified and turned to dust.
King Amanhotep the Intolerant himself, come to avenge the loss of his ship.
Aranessa had always prided herself on knowing when to fight and when to run. Grabbing her trident from its clasp atop the binnacle, she vaulted over a fallen cannon, putting as much distance between herself and the hateful thing as she could. The chant still rang in her ears, even though she couldn’t understand a word.
Slowing, she hobbled to the foredeck, her thoughts clouded with images of dust and sand and death. She clambered backwards as best she could as the thing walked unhurriedly up the stairway towards her, but her limbs felt like they were made of mud. The blades of Aranessa’s lower legs bumped into a long, wide sea-chest of Arabyan wood.
The Magus’ gift.
“This had better be good, fat man,” slurred Aranessa, heaving over the sea-chest and hammering it with her fists. It wouldn’t open.
The ancient thing was getting closer, stalking towards her with the malevolent patience of one who knows his prey cannot escape.
On the verge of panic, Aranessa forced her trident into the sea-chest’s lid and prised at it until her fingers were red with blood. The chest’s lock finally gave way with a loud crack, and a contraption of straps, scales and broad crescents of metal spilled onto the deck. Her mouth gaped. It looked very much like a tail, a fishtail made of metal and cogs.
The pain in her fingers cut through the fug of Nehekharan syllables that buzzed through her head like angry scarabs, and she fought hard to keep the rational parts of her mind from being drowned out by the sheer primal fear of the ageless thing stalking towards her across the deck.
Aranessa drew her slipknife and cut away the sawfish blades bound to her leg-stumps, sliding her thighs into the straps of the Magus’ fishtail contraption instead. She fumbled to tighten the awkward thing about her waist and pull herself up to sit on the gunwale at the same time, but the fug in her head was growing thicker with every step the wretched creature took. Sand fanned out through the air towards her, turning the Magus’ sea-chest to dust. A speck of the sparkling stuff landed on her cheek, and a patch of her face sloughed away. Laughing hideously, the ancient king pushed a crippled, wasted claw towards her.
An apocalyptic explosion split the air, and a sheet of cracking black lightning roared across the waves with such force that the Zandrian’s sunken eyes jerked upwards. Aranessa’s head cleared, and her panic gave her strength. She scooped up her trident and pulled herself up onto the gunwale, kicking out with the ends of the Magus’ contraption so that she was perched on the brink. She glimpsed the skaven leviathan-ship immolating in brief silhouette before disintegrating completely in a storm of warp-lightning.
The Tomb King Amanhotep lunged for her throat, but Aranessa let gravity take her backward, falling headfirst into the cold, bitter waters of the Galleon’s Graveyard.
The Heldenhammer was gathering speed, pulled onward by the vast funnel of seawater that roared down into the void at the maelstrom’s heart. An unwholesome rain had begun to pelt down, making the decks of the temple-ship slippery and reducing visibility even further.
Away to port, Flaming Scimitar was riding high on the periphery of the vortex, a clutch of frozen salt-devils holding it back from the whirlpool’s deadly pull with their broad, muscular shoulders. Ahead, the Bloody Reaver came on, actively seeking a collision course now that Sigmar’s Wrath hung useless at the temple-ship’s prow.
Captain Roth stood in the shadow of the fighting top, sword drawn. His death was close, he could taste it. The Bloody Reaver loomed larger and larger, tattered sails flapping as its bat-winged ram ploughed through the spume towards him. The maelstrom was propelling the vampire-ship against the current, Noctilus’ supernatural control over the gnashing whirlpool turning the colossal edifice into a jagged projectile of rock and fossilised timber.
Queen Bess, the massive cannon mounted in the skull-cave at the Reaver’s fore, boomed above the whirlpool’s roar. A gigantic cannonball smashed the front of the Grand Templus to powder, its glorious facade tumbling down into the scattered pirates cringing below. Roth risked a glance backwards. With heartbreaking slowness, the entire temple began to collapse in on itself, masonry cascading across the deck in an avalanche that crushed scores of men in the giant building’s shadow.
Roth roared in fear and anger as the Bloody Reaver’s ram drove towards them, poised to deliver the death blow.
The giant bronze statue at the Heldenhammer’s prow lifted slowly upward, chains dangling at its shoulders. It glowed softly from within, pure white light spilling from the cracks in its bronze casework where the metal had buckled. Roth cried out in exultation and fell to his knees, calling out encouragement to the statue as if it were alive.
The towering edifice rose up to its full height, a shining bronze god of war that sizzled with energy as the thick rain lashed down upon it. Poised majestically for a second, the statue arced back down with shocking speed, hammering into the prow of the oncoming vampire-ship like the fist of an angry god.
Ghal-Maraz crunched into the Reaver’s prow with such force that it smashed the rocky promontory from the central mass of warship, bat-winged prow and all. The vampire-ship bucked in the water as if it had ran into a mountain, the castle at its rear leaning crazily as the titanic shockwave rocked its core. Hundreds of men o’ bones and drowned sailors cascaded from the battlements and ledges into the gnashing seas below.
Still the Reaver was driven onwards by the fell currents below the waters. Up came the Wrath once more, raising its divine hammer with ponderous slowness before descending again. This time the tower-sized weapon struck the jag-ribbed midsection of the vampire-ship. An explosion of light burst outwards from the point of its impact, and the front half of the Reaver fell apart in a confusion of rubble. The aft section of the vampire-ship, no longer balanced by the rocky promontory at its front, began to lean crazily backward. Roth laughed into the storm as it passed the critical angle of recovery. The Reaver was sinking fast.
Aranessa hit the surface of the water as straight as a blade, plunging downward in a stream of bubbles. A spear-fisher for the long and lonely years of her childhood, she instinctively bucked her thighs to and fro, winding her way deeper under the waves with each sinuous motion.
She was rewarded for her efforts when the metallic contraption attached to her lower body jerked into life. The crescent sections fanned out into a wide, fully articulated fin, and the bands of metal around her waist cinched in tight. She could feel the pull of the maelstrom upon her; a great black void that threatened to swallow her whole should she tire. With the artificial strength of the Magus’ creation bolstering her perfect technique, however, she felt she could hold out for long enough.
Grinning fiercely, Aranessa ripped off her headscarf and breathed in a great lungful of cold water through the gills behind her ears. The brine tasted of magic and of death, but she didn’t care. Reborn, she thought; I have been reborn, back into the cool dark womb of the sea. The ease of movement felt amazing after so many crippled years.
It felt so good to have a tail again. She felt a sudden pang of regret that she had cut off
her birth-tail all those rum-sodden years ago, by the light of a lonely fire on the beach. She had so wanted to be human back then. Aranessa shuddered at the memory. She would have to thank the Golden Magus for reminding her where she belonged, even if she didn’t know why he’d done it.
First things first, thought Aranessa. There is business to attend to.
Lithe and determined, the captain powered her way towards a faint green glow that filtered through the inky waters. The Black Kraken was under the waves, sinking slowly, its tentacles clutching the shattered remains of Yrellian’s elven galleon as it descended into the depths.
The monstrosity had been stunned into mechanical failure by the lightning pulse of the skaven leviathan’s death throes. What was once a deadly predator had become a helpless great fish, waiting to be speared. The muscles at the back of Aranessa’s head ached with the effort of smiling so hard. This was freedom. The need for human approval was a distant memory. She wouldn’t miss any of the land-monkeys that much, truth be told.
Well, she admitted to herself, perhaps one.
Aranessa darted deftly between the Black Kraken’s tentacles, leaving corkscrew trails of bubbles in her wake. She could hear the thing’s engines whining and choking as they struggled to restart. Beneath her, the lambent glow of the Kraken’s faceted eye-ports was like a beacon drawing her onward. She made her way toward them. To her savage joy, one of the bulging eye-ports had an elven longspear jutting out from it. A spidery network of cracks spread out from the point of impact. Just as well, Aranessa admitted to herself as she levered the longspear back and forth. She could never have shattered it on her own.
With a dull snap, the glass of the Kraken’s eye-port broke apart. Seawater forced its way inside in a gushing torrent. Using the butt of her trident, Aranessa stabbed at the edges of the broken glass until the aperture was wide enough for her to wriggle inside.
[Warhammer] - Dreadfleet Page 15
