[Nagash 03] - Nagash Immortal

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  The fighting was as savage as it was merciless. No quarter was expected or given; the flesh-eaters were maddened by bloodlust and pain, and the skaven had come to fear and hate the unnatural creatures as they did little else. The monsters burst from the tunnels singly or in shrieking packs, many of them burning with sickly yellow flames, and Eekrit’s warriors rushed in and cut them down with spear and blade. After five years of brutal raids against the barbarian tribes, the warlord’s troops had become fearless, hard-bitten fighters—and Eekrit along with them, much to his surprise. Thanks to the thrice-damned Lord Velsquee, there had been little alternative.

  Officially, Velsquee had no direct authority over the expeditionary force—or so he insisted to Lord Hiirc and the army’s many clan chiefs. Eekrit retained his rank and title; Velsquee and his huge contingent of elite troops were merely there to observe the course of the campaign and to provide advice and assistance where needed. Of course, no one believed a word of it, but no one was willing to gainsay the Grey Lord, either. Meanwhile, Eekrit had been advised to go and harass the barbarians and the flesh-eaters, while Velsquee and that lunatic Qweeqwol discussed strategy and issued recommendations to the army from the comfort of Eekrit’s own audience chamber.

  Even now, five years on, there was much about Velsquee’s arrival that Eekrit didn’t understand. Clearly he and Lord Qweeqwol had been working together all along, at least insofar as the grey seers worked with anyone outside their own, secretive fraternity. But to what end? The warlord had no idea. At least, not yet.

  Marsh grasses thrashed along the far end of the killing ground. Eekrit tensed, his paw drifting to the hilt of the sword resting on the damp ground at his side. The flesh-eaters burst from cover at a loping, four-limbed run, their eyes alight and their hideous faces contorted with bloodlust. Eight of the monsters emerged from the tree line and down into the marshy hollow where the raiders waited.

  The skaven waited until their prey reached the very centre of the hollow. Black-robed shapes rose from cover, swinging braided leather cords above their heads. The slings made a thin, deadly whirring in the night air; the flesh-eaters halted at the sound, their gruesome heads swinging about in search of the sound, and that sealed their fates. Polished sling stones the size of snake eggs hissed through the air and found their mark; bones crunched wetly and the monsters collapsed, their limbs twitching.

  More black-robed figures appeared from cover and raced silently across the marshy ground. They converged on the flesh-eaters; daggers flashed briefly beneath the moonlight as the scout-assassins finished off their victims, then the bodies were dragged swiftly out of sight. Whatever their shortcomings as scouts and spies, Eshreegar’s rats were nonetheless very enthusiastic and capable killers.

  Silence descended again. The ambushers resumed their murderous vigil, ears open wide as they strained to hear the faintest sounds of approaching troops. After several minutes, Eekrit let go his sword and relaxed once more.

  “Another pack of stragglers,” Eshreegar whispered, close to the warlord’s left side. “Probably out prowling the wasteland at the foot of the mountain when we began the attack.”

  Eekrit’s tail gave a startled twitch. The Master of Treacheries had appeared at his side like a ghost.

  Calming his suddenly racing heart, the warlord gave Eshreegar a sidelong glance. The black-robed assassin was using a handful of marsh-grass to wipe the dark ichor of a flesh-eater from the edge of one of his knives.

  “There’s no sign of a response from the fortress?” Eekrit asked.

  Eshreegar shook his head. “Not since the alarm horns sounded, more than two hours ago. The main gate’s still shut.”

  The warlord raised his snout and gauged the height of the moon. “If they don’t march soon, it will be dawn before they arrive,” he reckoned.

  “If they come at all,” the Master of Treacheries agreed.

  Eekrit muttered irritably and considered his options. After destroying the flesh-eater nests, he’d brought together his forces and arranged them in an arc along the most likely avenues of approach from the distant fortress. Velsquee and Qweeqwol had been certain that the enemy would respond, probably with companies of swift-moving barbarian troops. In the dark and upon the unsteady, marshy terrain, Eekrit had expected to give the enemy a good mauling, then retreat to the safety of his tunnels, but that was growing less likely with each passing hour. To make matters worse, hungry packs of flesh-eaters were being drawn to the fires from lesser nests throughout the area; the longer his raiders remained in place, the greater the odds that they would be hit by the creatures from an unexpected direction, or find their escape routes cut off.

  Beside him, Eshreegar raised his head, his ears unfolding completely as he listened to the seemingly random animal sounds echoing across the marshland. “We’ve a runner from inside the mountain,” he said after a moment, then put a clawed paw to his mouth and made a sound very like the hiss of a large swamp lizard. The Master of Treacheries listened to the plaintive cry of a marsh owl and nodded to himself. “He’s heading this way.”

  “Damn it all, what now?” Eekrit muttered. As hard as the campaign against the barbarians had been, at least he and his warriors had been far enough from the mountain that Velsquee couldn’t stick his snout into things whenever he pleased.

  Within moments came the sounds of loud rustling through the marshy growth behind the raiders. Gritting his teeth, Eekrit rose carefully to his feet and sheathed his blade as a breathless skaven came dashing through a stand of dead cypress trees. The messenger came up short as he recognised Eekrit and crouched in a posture of subservience, his head cocked to the side and his throat bared to the warlord.

  Eekrit scowled at the hapless rat. “Eshreegar, hand this idiot a brass gong,” he growled. “Perhaps he could bang it for a while and sing us some songs. I think there might still be a few half-deaf flesh-eaters who don’t yet know where we’re at.”

  The messenger glanced nervously from Eekrit to the Master of Treacheries. “I… I don’t know any songs,” the clanrat protested weakly.

  “I suppose we should thank the Horned One for small mercies,” Eekrit snapped. “Did Velsquee send you here for a reason other than to vex me?”

  The messenger wrung his paws. “Oh, yes-yes, great lord,” he replied. “I-I bear a message from him.”

  “Well?” the warlord demanded. “Must we torture it out of you?”

  “No!” the clanrat squeaked. “No-no, great lord! Grey Lord Velsquee, ah, suggests that you and your warriors return to the mountain at once! The enemy is about to attack!”

  Eekrit frowned. “About to attack? And how does he know this?”

  The clanrat’s whiskers twitched. “That-that he did not say.”

  Eekrit cursed under his breath. “No. Of course not,” he muttered. He waved a clawed paw at the messenger. “Tell the great Velsquee that we appreciate his advice and we’ll come straight away. Go.”

  The messenger bowed his head and departed in a cloud of terrified musk. The noise he made thrashing through the undergrowth made Eekrit wince.

  Eshreegar rose to his feet. “Shall I tell the rest of the warband?”

  “We certainly can’t stay here anymore,” Eekrit snarled. “They probably heard that fool all the way back at the fortress.”

  The Master of Treacheries produced a bone whistle and blew three eerie, piercing notes—the signal for the raiders to abandon their positions and return to the tunnels. As the skaven made ready to depart, Eekrit glanced towards the dark bulk of the mountain and wondered what else Velsquee knew but wasn’t saying.

  All labour in mine shaft six had come to an abrupt end. The labourers had set aside their dusty picks and shovels and taken their place in the ranks of the spear companies massing along the length of the cavernous tunnel. A handful of barbarian warriors, hastily returning from a long patrol through the treacherous passages of the lower levels, eyed the silent assembly with a veteran’s sense of foreboding as they picked their
way through the tightly packed columns and continued their long journey to the surface.

  Moments later, a stir went through the spear companies at the centre of the mine shaft, and with a clatter of bone they shifted left and right as Nagash and the glowing figures of his wight bodyguard emerged from a nearby branch-tunnel. Behind the necromancer shuffled a score of broad-shouldered ratmen, their muscular bodies stained with gore and their filmy eyes glowing faintly green. They laboured under the weight of a massive bronze cauldron, appropriated from one of the necromancer’s fearful laboratories. The cauldron’s curved flanks were freshly incised with hundreds of angular runes and it was sealed with a heavy, ornate lid crowned with a cunning representation of four gaping human skulls. Faint wisps of vapour curled from the skulls’ open mouths and deep eye sockets.

  At Nagash’s unspoken command, the rat-corpses bore the cauldron into the cleared space between the companies and set it upon the stone with a dolorous clang, then withdrew to the mouth of the branch-tunnel. As they did, the necromancer produced a bag of crushed abn-i-khat from his belt and began to pour out a glowing circle of power around the great vessel. The sigil was a simple but potent one, designed to shape the workings of a spell and increase its potency a hundredfold.

  When all was in readiness, the necromancer stepped up to the great cauldron and pressed his ravaged palms against its surface. Then, in a low, hateful voice, he began his spell. For many long minutes, arcane words spilled from Nagash’s fraying lips, filling the mine shaft with ominous power. A deep, low hissing rose from the depths of the great cauldron and its sides began to shimmer with steadily mounting heat. Thin wisps of smoke rose from the necromancer’s desiccated hands, but Nagash did not relent. His chanting grew in speed and intensity, his glowing eyes focused intently on the boiling cauldron and its invisible contents.

  Slowly but steadily, the vapours emanating from the leering bronze skulls began to take on a luminous, sickly, greenish-yellow hue. The tendrils of mist thickened swiftly, flowing heavily across the cauldron’s lid and writhing like serpents across the tunnel floor.

  With eerie swiftness, the flow of vapour swelled to a torrent, pouring from the skulls in a rushing flood and boiling about the ankles of the waiting skeletons. Its touch pitted bone, tarnished bronze and bleached wooden spear-hafts and shields, but the undead took no notice.

  Nagash’s incantation swelled in volume, and the mist seemed to react to the vehemence in his sepulchral voice. Within moments the mists stretched the entire length of the mine shaft, rising as high as the knees of the skeletons and roiling against the tunnel walls.

  All at once, Nagash threw back his head and roared a stream of arcane syllables, and a charnel gust of wind swept down the branch-tunnels from the surface. It howled like a tormented spirit in the confines of the mine shaft and drove the heavy vapours ahead of it, down the branch-tunnels and into the lower levels, where the masses of the ratmen waited.

  By the time Eekrit and his small force had collapsed the raiding tunnels behind them and reached the under-fortress, the entire camp was in a state of pandemonium. Alarm gongs clashed and bone whistles screeched, calling the army’s reserves into action. Slave masters and their gangs were driving masses of panicked slaves into the upper access tunnels, lashing the backs of their wretched charges with whips or prodding them with wickedly pointed spears. The warlord even heard a cacophony of hisses and howling shrieks from Clan Skryre’s quarter, hinting that their infernal machines were being hastily readied for action. Knowing how jealous Vittrik was of his unpredictable creations, the sound raised the hackles on the back of the warlord’s neck.

  Eshreegar paused beside the warlord, his ears open and his nose twitching. “What’s this?” he mused aloud.

  “Nothing good,” Eekrit answered darkly. He considered the sounds of movement on the far side of the cavern; the main tunnels were likely crammed with skaven warriors rushing to battle. He had no intention of getting caught up in that chaos—especially with Vittrik’s war machines coming up behind him. “Get the warriors over to the eastern murder holes and wait for me there.”

  “What about you?” Eshreegar said.

  “I’m going to find out what in the Horned God’s name is going on.”

  The warlord broke away from the raiding party and dashed down the maze-like tunnels that subdivided the cavern. Minutes later he was standing outside his clan’s former quarters. He’d expected to find Velsquee’s personal guard standing watch outside the entrance, but the fearsome-looking storm-walkers were nowhere to be seen.

  Tail lashing apprehensively, Eekrit pressed on, heading for the audience chamber. The cramped passageways were deserted, as was the hall itself. Eekrit stood at the threshold to the chamber and stared possessively at the throne at the far end for a moment.

  Eekrit caught a hint of movement at the corner of his eye. He turned swiftly, reaching for his sword out of reflex, and saw one of Velsquee’s slaves scuttling from a side-passage. The slave caught the sudden motion and let out a terrified squeak. Pungent musk filled the air.

  “I’m-I’m on an errand for Lord Velsquee!” the slave bleated, his beady eyes wide. “An important errand, yes-yes! Certainly not hiding. No, I’d never—”

  “I don’t care,” Eekrit snarled. He took a step towards the terrified slave. “Where is Velsquee now?”

  “Up-up, in the tunnels, with Lord Qweeqwol,” the wretch stammered. “The seer said that the skeletons were going to attack, and Velsquee went with the heechigar to catch the kreekar-gan.” The fiery-eyed burning man had become a baleful legend among the ranks of the army’s veterans.

  Eekrit lips drew back from his chisel-like teeth. Qweeqwol had never been half so useful before Velsquee arrived. “Go on,” he growled.

  The slave shuddered and his ears folded back against his head. “Velsquee laid-laid a trap for the kreekar-gan, but this time the skeletons have filled the tunnels with a killing smoke that slays-slays everyone it touches! Many-many are dead, and the rest are in flight! Already, the skeletons have taken mine shaft seven, and are drawing close to number eight!”

  The news stunned Eekrit. If Velsquee had laid a trap for the kreekar-gan, he would have had his best troops gathered for the ambush. In those tunnels, there would have been no escape from any kind of killing gas. The heechigar and the clan warriors of Velsquee’s supporters—including the insufferable Lord Hiirc—had likely been decimated.

  Like any sensible skaven, Eekrit’s first instinct was to grab everything valuable he could find and not stop running until he reached the Great City. Yet the warlord also sensed a tantalising opportunity to regain some of his lost stature, if he could but find a way to check the enemy’s advance. Eekrit’s mind raced. He could use the murder holes to get in behind the skeletons, but what then? A few hundred warriors with hand weapons and a few torches wouldn’t do more than slow them down. He would have to do something drastic.

  An idea occurred to the warlord. His tail lashed as he formulated the outlines of a plan. It could work, he thought, his confidence growing. Of course, it could also get him killed. Even if he succeeded, Velsquee might have him poisoned just out of spite, but he would worry about that later.

  Eekrit shook himself from his scheming reverie. “You said the skeletons were moving on mine shaft eight,” he said, turning his attention back to the slave. “Is there any chance of holding the enemy there?”

  The warlord blinked in surprise. He was alone in the antechamber. The slave had fled while he had been lost in his own thoughts. Under the circumstances, that seemed to be answer enough for Eekrit’s purposes.

  Eshreegar gripped the sputtering torch uneasily. “Are you certain this is wise?”

  “Wise? No,” Eekrit muttered. “But necessary. Of that, I’m certain.”

  The warlord and his raiders were packed into a steep, roughly circular passage that had been gnawed through the hard rock that lay deep within the great mountain. The tunnel was one of several that had been dug over
the last decade and set aside in case an enemy attack succeeded in overrunning the defensive positions around the lower mine shafts. The passages were small enough to avoid detection by the enemy, or so Eekrit devoutly hoped, but were positioned to allow for lightning raids behind the enemy’s line of advance. The small skaven force had reached the uppermost limit of the tunnel they were in, right at the level of mine shaft seven. Only a foot of relatively soft rock separated them from the shaft itself. A small knot of skaven warriors stood ready, awaiting the order to create the breach.

  Orange light flickered hungrily in the cramped confines of the tunnel. One skaven in twenty carried a lit torch—not nearly enough to suit Eekrit, but all that they had left after the raid against the flesh-eaters. The rest of the raiders were charged with ensuring that the torchbearers reached their targets. The rest was up to luck and the Horned God’s favour.

  From the look on Eshreegar’s face, the Master of Treacheries was far from convinced. “What about this killing smoke that the slave mentioned?”

  Eekrit tried to give Eshreegar a nonchalant flick of his whiskers. “If the skeletons have such a weapon, it would be down in the lower tunnels by now,” he said. “The enemy will be pressing its advantage to gain as much ground as it can.”

  The assassin shifted uncomfortably. “But smoke gets everywhere—” he protested.

  “Then hold your breath if you like,” Eekrit growled. With a curt nod, he ordered the digging party to go to work.

  Eekrit focussed on readying his weapon and clamping down hard on his own musk glands. The more he thought about the ways his plan could go awry, the more nervous he became. He was gambling heavily that the majority of the skeletons would have passed through mine shaft seven by now. If he was wrong, there would be no way for the small force to extricate itself—and he would have opened up a direct route for the enemy all the way to the under-fortress, many levels below. Not that he would live long enough to witness such a disaster.