by Darius Hinks
He was the last.
His slight, battered frame was all that remained between the skaven and their prize. As the prince stumbled back from the jeering multitudes, even his exhaustion could not fully numb him to the horror of their defeat.
As the skaven advanced towards him they called out in their quick, chittering language, taunting him with their screeched, incoherent cries and rattling their short, curved swords against their shields. From a few rows back, their cowardly leader shoved them forwards with its sword. The prince had singled it out a while ago. The monster's hide was even more repulsive than that of the others, pock-ridden and moist with disease. The prince had also noted how careful the creature was to position itself well away from the frontline, keeping several of the larger, more heavily armoured soldiers in front of it at all times.
As the next wave of creatures loped towards him, the prince scraped the tip of his sword up from the floor with a weary moan. 'You spineless filth,' he muttered as he forced his aching limbs into a fighting stance. As the skaven edged closer, thrusting their drooling muzzles towards him, he saw no sign of understanding in their bestial eyes, but he carried on speaking all the same. 'I have strength in me yet,' he gasped, raising his sword to strike.
Before the creatures could attack, their leader called out to them with a short, gurgled command. They cringed at the sound of its voice and crouched low to the ground, backing quickly away from the prince.
The diseased skaven signalled to another diminutive figure, crouched on a rock a few yards back along the bridge. This one wore a leather mask and a pair of cracked, broken goggles. At its master's command, it stretched its hunched, sinewy frame up from the rock and pointed a long pistol at the prince.
Stormrider looked from the creature with the gun and back to its master.
The scab-encrusted skaven glared back at him. Even the thick, battered helmet pulled down over its snout could not hide the excitement that flashed in its beady eyes.
The prince noticed that once the skaven leader had turned its gaze away from its underling, the wretched thing changed its aim and pointed the weapon at the back of its deformed leader. Its lips curled back from its fangs and a low chuckle rattled in its scrawny throat. Then it pulled the trigger.
As the gun detonated the diseased skaven chieftain roared victoriously, waving its sword over its head. Then it shouldered its way to the front of the army and let out a howl of rage as it saw that the prince remained in the centre of the bridge, swaying slightly with exhaustion, but still blocking their way.
The chieftain turned back to the figure with the gun and screamed a garbled torrent of curses at it.
The creature with the pistol was as confused as its master. As it looked down at the crumpled lump of metal in its paw, it seemed completely unaware that the recoil had dislodged a thick shard of glass from its broken goggles, and that it was now embedded deeply in its left eye. It was only as a mixture of blood and vitreous fluid began to wash over its muzzle that it let out a terrified scream.
The chieftain roared again, shoving its guards towards the screaming wretch, but before they could art, the creature with the pistol dropped its ruined weapon, leapt from the rock and sprinted from the bridge. Within seconds it had completely disappeared from view.
Prince Stormrider allowed himself a bitter laugh as the monsters turned back towards him. 'If you hadn't been so busy fighting yourselves, you could have finished this hours ago,' he spat, wiping a thin trail of blood from his mouth and lifting his sword once more.
As he prepared to attack, the mutated skaven chieftain let out a gasp of fear and crouched low to the ground.
Stormrider staggered towards the cringing figure, raising his sword to strike. Then he noticed that even the armour-clad guards were shuffling back in fear. Only seconds before, they had been snarling and spitting victoriously as they watched him growing weaker; now they seemed too afraid to attack. Something else was strange; the constant twilight that covered the island was lifting. He realised that the skaven were not cowering away from his sword, but from the new dawn blossoming behind him.
He looked back and squinted into the light. His eyes had become so used to the perpetual gloom that he had to shield his face with the flat of his sword before he could see anything at all. Then he reeled back in shock. Striding from the temple gates was a group of dazzling, haloed figures. The light was not from the sun at all; it was pouring from the spectral beings marching out towards the bridge. As they approached, the prince realised that they were elves, but elves like none that he had ever seen. Their insubstantial flesh shimmered and flashed with power and their noble faces shone with a god-like glory that utterly humbled him. In the face of such terrible beauty, his strength finally left him and he dropped to his knees in an act of stunned genuflection.
One of the figures seemed a little more corporeal as he strode ahead of the others, and the prince gasped as he recognised his face. 'Caladris?' he gasped, squinting into the blaze.
The mage was deaf to his prince's words. His flesh was wreathed in power and lightning sparked in the folds of his diaphanous robes. His eyes had been replaced with a pair of stars, burning with such ferocity that Stormrider found it impossible to meet his gaze.
The skaven nearest to the dazzling figures tried to flee, but with thousands of their ratkin crushed behind them, there was nowhere to go and a desperate struggle began. Their leader, meanwhile, was shaking its head in furious disbelief. It was so shocked and enraged, that it forgot its fear and began to stumble towards Caladris.
Before the skaven had got very far, the young mage raised his staff and spoke. The incomprehensible words that echoed around the rocks did not come from one throat but many. The ghostly figures behind Caladris intoned the phrase at exactly the same moment, lending his spell a terrible power.
Light poured from the bodies of the elves, channelled itself through Caladris's staff and streamed over the head of the kneeling prince.
At the front of its army, the diseased chieftain took the full impact of the blast. Its wiry limbs shivered and danced as the energy tore through its body and spread to those around it, leaping from creature to creature and linking them into a great shimmering mass. The magic spread through the army with incredible speed, lighting up the whole coastline with a carpet of twitching, screaming shapes.
As the power enveloped it, the chieftain's body began to stretch and bloat. Its patchy fur bulged with dozens of nascent limbs that writhed beneath its flesh, straining to be free. At first, the skaven's eyes were filled with horror, but as its body continued to grow, it let out a giggle of pleasure. New muscles rippled over its back and it rose up above the jerking heads of its soldiers with a shiver of excitement. Within seconds it went from five foot to six foot; then seven; then ten. As the magic flooded through its body, it quickly found itself towering over even the lumbering rat ogres. Its armour exploded from its undulating muscles and its talons curled around its paws in long, bloody arcs. It glared down at the elves, exultant with power. With a roar that split the heavens, it flexed a forest of muscled arms and leant back on its heels, preparing to smash down its fists on the tiny shapes at its feet.
The skaven's flesh could not maintain such violent growth however and as it moved to strike its fur began to split and shred. There was a wet tearing sound as its multiplying organs burst from its chest and its pendulous arms tore free of their sockets. The nest of eyes that had spread across its face rolled briefly with panic, then the whole, twisting mass of its flesh collapsed into itself, splashing blood and viscera across the bridge and down into the sea below.
With the fall of the chieftain, Caladris's magic shone unhindered into the smouldering shapes behind. A beautiful tide of cerulean fire flooded over them, incinerating everything in its path, burning through the skaven horde. Flesh erupted like kindling and the huge machines teetered and collapsed in on themselves with a series of booming thunderclaps. For a brief moment, the clouds that perpetually shroud
ed the island rolled back and writhed up into a whirling vortex of light. It looked to Prince Stormrider as though the gods themselves were funnelling all their vengeance and might down onto the heads of the scrabbling, shrieking figures that covered the island.
FOR A LONG TIME, Prince Stormrider lay on his back, dazed by the incredible display that had flooded over him. Even after several minutes, he could still feel the afterglow of the spell, crawling over his prone limbs, sparking between his teeth and jangling in his temples. Then a hoarse cough dragged his thoughts back to the bridge and the pile of cooling bodies that was his bed. He lifted his head with a groan and looked back towards the temple. The dazzling figures had vanished and the temple had been plunged back into darkness, but he could just about make out a slight figure, hunched and trembling as it crawled across the ancient stone towards him.
'Caladris?' he muttered, sitting up and reaching out a hand into the shadows. 'Is that you?'
The mage collapsed next to him on the mound of scorched flesh and shattered shields. His face was drawn and grey but his eyes were filled with zeal. The...' he croaked, struggling to form words with his scorched vocal cords.
The prince gripped him by the shoulder and nodded. 'I know,' replied the prince. 'The Ulthane.' He wiped the ash from his face and tried to smile. 'I saw them. You held your promise, Caladris.'
The mage nodded weakly and slumped against him. Neither of them had the strength nor the inclination to say any more; so they simply sat there in silence, their backs together, as they watched the fire and smoke rippling across the blackened remains of their enemy. Slender, pale shapes were already picking their way through the corpses; the crews of the elven ships were finally making their slow approach towards the temple.
As the distant figures glimmered faintly in the twilight, they reminded Caladris of dispossessed spirits, searching endlessly for a home they would never see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
WARLORD VERMINKIN PEERED out from the tunnel and sniffed the cool night air. For a few moments his snout twitched and bobbed at the threshold, until he was sure he was alone. Then he scampered out and rushed up onto the clifftop to look back across the sea. He flinched at the sight of the distant fires that still covered the island. Even from the safety of the mainland, he could smell the acrid stink of burning fur. He shook his head in awe at the scale of the destruction. 'Dead-dead,' he muttered. 'All of them.' As he pondered this fact, he began to giggle. 'Dead-dead,' he repeated, with a little more enthusiasm. Green light flashed through the hole in his armour as he began scuttling back and forth along the edge of the cliff. The mangled talisman beneath his breastplate was still throbbing with power, despite having Ratchitt's charmed shot embedded in its centre.
'Dead!' he screamed triumphantly at the distant fires. 'You're dead, Spinetail! You! Are! Dead! And Clan Klaw is mine!' The fact that he might be the clan's only survivor did not seem to concern the warlord as he danced and sprang across the rocks. Then he paused, drumming his claws against the remnants of his helmet as a thought struck him. He spun around, looking for something, then clambered a little closer to the edge of the cliff.
The Warp-Diffusion and Discontinuity Escapement Chamber was just as they had left it. The battered brass of the cabinet was emitting a low hum and the wan light of the sphere was still pulsing over the rocks.
The warlord hesitated for a moment, eyeing the sphere with suspicion as it lit up the twisted remains of Ratchitt's assistants. Then he let out roar of defiance and launched himself at the machine. His armour-clad bulk slammed into the metal casing, snapping the guy ropes that held it in place and sending Ratchitt's lovingly crafted masterpiece spinning out from the cliff top in a spray of shattered glass and rotating gears. It seemed to hang in the air for a second, flashing with renewed brilliance; then it plummeted down towards the rocky shore below.
Verminkin grunted with satisfaction as the machine exploded in a ball of fire that painted the whole cliff face a sickly green. As the flames died down, he squinted out across the waves towards the island. For a few minutes nothing happened and the warlord began to fidget and mutter to himself. Then, far in the distance, a single red light pulsed into life. Verminkin gasped as another lit up, and then another. Soon, a boiling red mist surrounded the whole island. The warlord backed nervously away from the edge of the cliff. As he peered through the thick haze, he thought he could make out long, stern faces, surveying the crimson tides below. Fear gripped him and for a few seconds he was unable to move. Then he grinned and threw back his head. 'You're all dead-dead,' he screamed, levelling his meat cleaver at the island. 'And Klaw is mine!'
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After a music career so disastrous it landed him in court, Darius Hinks decided a job in publishing might be safer. Since joining the Black Library he's worked on such legendary titles as Inquis Exterminates and Liber Chaotica as well as writing The Witch Hunter's Handbook and short stories for several of the Black Library's anthologies. Rumours that he still has a banjo hidden in his loft are fiercely refuted by his lawyers.
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