Visscher hoped that Seeckt’s confidence was justified.
‘There,’ the agent suddenly hissed, his voice low and cautious. He pointed a gloved finger at a great jumble of mossy stones. The broken megaliths might once have formed some mighty castle or temple, but if they had, it had been long before the advent of man. There was a sense of hoary antiquity about the eroded, crumbling plinths that evoked a feeling of disquiet, an impression that the eye gazed upon something lost which had been better to remain forgotten.
‘Just the sort of place for monsters, is it not?’ Seeckt asked, indicating the line of glowing splotches. The trail led into the jumble of rocks, vanishing beneath one of the windswept stones.
‘If that’s their lair, we should go back and get help,’ Visscher suggested, fighting down the urge to simply turn and run. ‘There’s no telling how many of the vermin are down there.’
‘That is why we need to see for ourselves,’ Seeckt said. ‘We need to know how many of them there are. There could be more than the Shakerlo can handle.’
It was sound reasoning, but that didn’t make it any easier for Visscher to accept. He hesitated when Seeckt began stealing towards the mound of stones, tempted to leave the arrogant envoy to his fate. Then he closed his eyes and saw again the loathsome creatures they had battled on the Shakerlo. Grimly, the riverwarden trotted after Seeckt. No man could abandon another to such vile monsters and still call himself a man.
‘The swamp stink should help mask our scent,’ Seeckt advised Visscher as they approached the stones. ‘The fog will hide us from their eyes, but be careful about making any noise. The ears of a skaven are much sharper than ours.’
Staring down into the black gap beneath the stone, Visscher wasn’t reassured by Seeckt’s warning. The hole drove under the megalith at a slant, making the prospect of crawling down into it even more repugnant. A menagerie of odours drifted up from the cavity, a mixture of fur and filth, old bones and rotten meat and another, still more noxious smell that made Visscher’s nose burn. He reached down for his mask, intending to replace it over his face and block out the smell.
It was at that moment that the attack came. The attention of both men fixed upon the hole, Visscher further discomfited as he fumbled with his mask, the ambush caught them at their most unguarded. A dozen furry shapes sprang at them from the fog, leaping down from the mossy stones, pouncing from covered pits, scurrying from behind jumbles of rock. The two men were smashed to the muddy ground beneath a fury of snapping fangs and flashing claws. Scrawny paws ripped the swords from their hands, one of the monsters chittering with sadistic humour as it pulled the mask from Visscher’s grip. The ratman capered about proudly with his prize, then darted down into the hole when a larger skaven moved to take it from him.
The big skaven snarled in frustration, his black fur bristling as he glared after the vanished thief. He gnashed his fangs, then gestured at the two humans pinned to the ground. A stream of sharp squeaks and hisses rushed past the ratman’s fangs, the spit-speak language of the underfolk. Sullenly, the other ratmen responded to the black-fur’s commands. Visscher and Seeckt were roughly forced to their feet, prodded and kicked until they preceded their inhuman captors into the slimy murk beneath the toppled megalith.
How long the two men spent in the winding network of muddy tunnels and passageways, neither of them could say. At every step, the slanted floor seemed to drop away, causing them to stumble and slip in the slime that coated the floor. Their difficulties brought chitters of malignant mirth from their captors, who only kicked and clawed them with increased brutality each time the men fell.
There was no sense of organization or pattern to the tunnels. Occasionally a weird green lantern would appear, bolted to the stone ceiling overhead. The sickly green light did little to illuminate the darkness, but seemed to give the skaven a measure of comfort whenever they drew close. Visscher was reminded of the glowing lamps the Shakerlo’s attackers had worn and which he had mistaken for the eye of a marsh daemon. Recalling the caustic aftermath of breaking one of the lamps, Visscher wondered if the lanterns might not lend themselves to similar purpose.
After what seemed an eternity to the two men, the maze of winding tunnels opened into a vast hall-like cavern. Dozens of green lanterns illuminated the hall, casting weird shadows across the heaps of mud and splintered rock strewn about. Crates and boxes were piled throughout the chamber, the plunder from the ships the ratmen had been hijacking.
To one side of the cavern, where the stone ceiling was at its lowest, a jumble of rock was flanked by a nest of tattered flags and filthy banners, each of them bearing a three-clawed symbol picked out in yellow thread.
While there were skaven scurrying throughout the cavern, the largest congregation of them was around the pile of rock. The creatures sported a wild disarray of garments, from slick coveralls such as a smith might wear to spiked suits of armour. Several of the ratmen wore the same leathery green vestments as the Shakerlo’s attackers. A few of the monsters had massive harnesses strapped to their backs, an array of weird and menacing devices curling outward from the boxy frames.
All of the skaven faced towards a miserable figure who stood alone at the base of the rock pile. The protective green cloak and gauntlets had been stripped from the wretched ratman, but the phosphorescent paint clinging to its tail left no doubt as to its identity. The skaven’s naked body was torn and mangled, its fur bloodied from dozens of cuts and bites. It grovelled before the rock pile, pressing its snout into the mud and whining in a continuous stream of squeaks.
The monster perched atop the rock pile glowered down at the wretch, unmoved by its pleas. Taller than the other skaven, his lean body cloaked in a flowing robe of yellow silk, its edges marked with black symbols that seemed to squirm and writhe as the eye fell upon them. A belt of skin circled the skaven’s waist, a motley array of strange implements hanging from the many hooks fixed to the belt. Dark grey fur, mottled with specks of brown, clothed the creature’s body, fading into pure white at his throat. The eyes that glared down at the snivelling wretch lent a final aspect of horror to the skaven’s countenance, for they were of a weird, almost spectral green, gleaming with the pitiless malignance of an inhuman intelligence.
‘Gnawlitch Shun!’ The frightened whisper escaped Seeckt’s lips, giving name to the horror lording over this nest of monsters. The agent’s outburst brought angry squeaks from their captors, the black-furred bully raking his claws across Seeckt’s cheek. The ratman laughed as he licked the human’s blood from his paw.
Visscher’s mind raced. How was it possible that Seeckt knew this monster by sight? Exactly how much did the agent know about these underfolk?
There was no time for questions. A commotion had erupted at the base of the rock pile. Even as the ratkin with the painted tail was being dragged away, a spindly crook-backed skaven scurried out from the pack. He chittered happily at his enthroned lord, brandishing Visscher’s stolen mask with the flourish of a conquering hero.
Gnawlitch Shun silenced the capering ratman’s antics with an angry snarl. He raised his head, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air. The merciless green eyes turned, glaring directly at the mouth of the tunnel, fixing on the two human prisoners. The mask was proof that the men knew something about what the skaven had been doing and had come prepared.
‘So-so, no one followed your tail-trail,’ Gnawlitch Shun snarled in Reikspiel. His eyes still fixed upon the two humans, the ratman lifted his hand and snapped his claws.
A heavily-built skaven, his brown fur singed and scarred, lumbered out from among the pack. His bulk was curled under a massive metal drum, his face locked inside a bronze helmet. A monstrous, nozzle-like device was strapped about his left arm, a riot of wires and hoses streaming away to converge upon the tank tied to the ratkin’s back. The skaven turned a dial set into the side of the contraption, causing it to shudder into life with a grinding growl and a spurt of smoke.
The other skaven backed away as
the menacing war-rat answered his master’s call. The captive ratman was unceremoniously shoved forwards into the space before the rock pile. For an instant, the unfortunate creature was frozen with uncertainty and terror. His head snapped from side to side in a frantic effort to find the safest route of retreat. On all fronts a mass of snarling skaven stood against his escape. Too craven to leap into any danger, the ratman remained gripped by indecision.
The war-rat pointed his left arm at the doomed skaven. Pulling back on a lever, he loosed the awful power of his weapon. Steam vented from the nozzle, sickly green light erupting from the barrel of the cannon and sizzling across the space between killer and victim. The wretch shrieked as the fur was flayed from his battered body, the murderous green light searing through skin and flesh, annihilating almost instantaneously everything down the very bone. It was a smouldering skeleton that crashed to the ground, its feet and hands and painted tail rendered still more hideous for their wholesome state. When death had struck, those parts had been outside the disintegrating green light.
‘Let that illustrate – Gnawlitch Shun is master of death,’ the robed warlock hissed at the humans. He pointed a long claw at the two men. ‘You will die-suffer when it amuses me and curse the ingenuity that led you here.’
Visscher felt his veins turn to ice as the skaven lord uttered his threat. The horrible way in which this monster had disposed of one of his own followers was a graphic demonstration of the fiend’s merciless mind. How much worse would the ratman treat with captives of another race?
Seeckt fell onto his knees in an attitude of terror and submission. The skaven around the two men laughed at his grovelling, snickering among themselves. The black-furred brute swatted the back of Seeckt’s head with his paw, glaring at him with undisguised contempt.
Doomed as they certainly were, Visscher felt a surge of fury rush through him. They were going to die, but at least they could die on their feet like men, not snivelling in the muck at the feet of vermin! The riverwarden surged forwards, seizing the black-fur by the shoulder, spinning the skaven around and smashing his fist into the creature’s nose. The black-fur yelped in pain, doubling over as he clapped both paws against his snout, leaving himself defenceless against the boot Visscher drove into the monster’s groin.
The moment his tormentor yelped in pain, Seeckt was on his feet, his voice lifted in a fierce shout. ‘Gnawlitch Shun!’ the agent yelled at the fiend on the rocks. ‘The Seerlord sends you the Twelfth Atonement!’
Seeckt’s balled fist flashed forwards, flinging something at the rock pile. Gnawlitch Shun’s tall frame wilted into a cowering ball, his arms raised protectively across his face. It took the warlock a moment to recover from the surprise of Seeckt’s sudden attack, and another to appreciate that whatever havoc the human had intended, the Grand Warlock of Clan Skryre was unharmed.
Gnawlitch Shun jabbed his claw at his attacker. ‘Kill the man-things!’ he raged, sending the skaven gathered about the cavern scurrying towards the tunnel. The skaven around Visscher and Seeckt drew their blades, eager to carry out their master’s command. ‘Kill the traitor-meat!’ Gnawlitch Shun’s voice screeched.
In his fury, the Grand Warlock continued to shriek in Reikspiel rather than the squeak-spit of the skaven tongue, but the meaning of ‘traitor-meat’ wasn’t lost upon the ratmen surrounding Visscher and Seeckt. The agent had brought some weapon into the cavern in an attempt to kill the warlock. That was only possible if his captors had allowed it. To the skaven mind, every mistake was evidence of treacherous plotting and scheming.
The marked skaven squealed in fright and began scurrying down the tunnel, fleeing for their lives back into the maze of slimy passages. Visscher stared after them for a moment, before Seeckt grabbed his shoulder and urged him to follow the retreating ratmen.
‘Run!’ the agent ordered. ‘If we follow them we might have a chance of reaching the surface!’
As though to emphasize Seeckt’s words, a motley barrage of missiles crashed around the two men – bullets fired from long muskets by wiry ratmen, bolts of electricity thrown from the weird armatures of the warlock-engineers, sheets of green flame billowing from the mouths of ghoulish fire-projectors. A squeal of mortal agony rang out as the two men made their dash down the tunnel. Visscher looked back to see the black-furred skaven he had struck being disintegrated by the green ray. The bronze-helmeted war-rat glared after the two men, scurrying in pursuit with hideous speed.
Visscher was thankful for the darkness of the tunnels, feeling a sense of security in the all-encompassing blackness. Away from the lights of Gnawlitch Shun’s cavern, the riverwarden felt there was a real chance they might escape the inhuman monsters chasing them. Without realising it, he allowed his pace to slacken.
‘Keep running,’ Seeckt snapped at Visscher. ‘Just because they can’t see us doesn’t mean they can’t find us! I told you, a skaven follows his nose more than his eyes. They’ll have no problem following our scent down here!’
The reminder made Visscher’s stomach turn. Suddenly, the dark didn’t feel so safe. He clenched his fists in impotent fury. His occupation was one that fitted him to the role of hunter, tracking down smugglers and pirates. Playing the part of the hunted was new to Visscher, a novelty he found himself ill-equipped to accept.
‘Back there,’ the riverwarden said as he hurried to keep pace with Seeckt. ‘I… I really thought you’d given up.’
‘I needed to gull them into letting down their guard,’ Seeckt replied. ‘Our only chance to get out of there was to wrong foot them. Your attack on old black-fur was a perfect distraction.’
Visscher’s brow knitted with a question that had been nagging him. ‘Just what was that you told their leader? And what was it you threw at him?’
Seeckt’s sly smile was lost in the darkness. ‘I threatened him by invoking the name of one of the underfolk’s high priests.’ The agent laughed. ‘Then I threw a rock at him!’
Visscher joined in the agent’s laughter, taking strength from the simple trick Seeckt had played upon the monstrous skaven leader. Their mirth faded after a moment, smothered by the damp darkness all about them. ‘Do you think we really have a chance?’ the riverwarden asked.
‘No,’ Seeckt admitted. ‘But if they don’t pick up our scent, we might give them a good chase. Come on.’
The two men groped their way through the gloom, following the slimy walls of the passageway with their hands. Furtive sounds, the scurry of normal rats, the creeping hop of toads and lizards, brought sweat dripping from their brows despite the clammy chill of the tunnel. A few times they heard the spit-squeak of skaven voices in the distance. Once, Visscher was certain, he heard a plaintive cry which sounded uncannily human. It reminded him somehow of the crazed babble of Gustav Mertens.
When the green glow of a lantern appeared at the far end of the passage the men groaned in relief, a relief that they felt down to their very toes. They did not think of the sickly hue of the glow or the unpleasant vapours billowing from the lamp. After the unremitting darkness, it was enough that there was light. Without thought or fear, the two fugitives rushed headlong down the tunnel.
They were only a few yards from the lantern when they discovered their mistake. The skaven hadn’t been chasing them – they’d been waiting for them! By some infernal means, the ratkin had figured out which tunnel the humans were in and decided to lie in wait for them at the other end.
There were a half dozen of the monsters, their beady eyes gleaming in the ugly light. Foremost among them was the hideous war-rat with the bronze helmet and the warp-ray lashed to his arm. Spotting the two men, the war-rat snarled an order to his comrades, waving them forwards to seize the fugitives.
Visscher felt his stomach turn. He had seen for himself the speed these creatures could muster when they weren’t burdened with respirators and protective coverings. There was no chance at all they could outrun the unleashed rat pack.
Deliverance came from the most unexpected sou
rce. As the ratkin surged forwards to capture the men, the war-rat stepped back towards the wall. He lifted the nozzle of his weapon and drew back the lever. A blazing ribbon of green energy surged from the projector, striking down the other skaven with murderous precision. The partially disintegrated bodies crashed to the slimy floor, the dying shrieks of the ratmen echoing from the walls.
The fratricidal war-rat released the lever, cutting off the killing warp-ray once the last of his comrades was destroyed. A chitter of malicious laughter rattled through the bronze mask. The war-rat had been happy to let other skaven share the hunt, but he wasn’t going to let any of them share the rewards of victory.
The war-rat gestured with his weapon, motioning the two men to come towards him. ‘Gnawlitch Shun like live-take,’ the skaven’s shrill voice assured them.
Seeckt glared back at the gloating vermin. ‘Your master’s plans are ruined,’ he told the war-rat. ‘Run while you still have the chance.’
Again, the war-rat’s laughter wheezed through his metal mask. ‘Funny-squeak!’ the skaven hissed. ‘All man-things die-suffer now!’
The war-rat raised his warp-ray projector, his paw reaching to the lever. Before he could unleash the disintegrating green light, however, something went flying past his face. The war-rat ducked aside, but the projectile wasn’t aimed at him. Its target was behind the skaven, bolted to the ceiling. The glass face of the lantern exploded as the missile struck it, spattering the ceiling with phosphorescent dust and unleashing a cloud of sizzling vapour that crashed down about the war-rat.
Shrill squeals of pain shuddered from the war-rat’s mask as the corrosive gas settled upon him. The ratman pawed frantically at his smouldering body, trying to smother the chemical fires burning his body. On his back, the engine of the warp-ray projector was likewise suffering from the caustic gas, but without the panicked paws of a skaven to diffuse the destruction. The corroded engine began to sputter and spark, then exploded in a burst of emerald light.
Hammer and Bolter 8 Page 6
