Eshreegar gave a discreet cough. He nodded his head at the slaver. “Do you still want me to…?”
The former warlord glanced back at Kritchit. “No,” he told Eshreegar. Then, to Kritchit, he said, “What luck! Here is Grey Lord Velsquee, no doubt come to partake of all those luxuries we’re so famous for here.” He gestured to the palanquin. “You should go at once and demand your extra shares from him. My lord is famous for his compassion and generosity.”
Kritchit shuddered from his whiskers to the tip of his tail. “Oh, no!” he squeaked. “No, I-I would not dream of-of imposing on Lord Velsquee.” The slaver gulped. “No. One share will-will do.”
“Truly, Kritchit, you’re an example to us all,” Eekrit sneered. “Now get your gang moving and hand over the slaves double-quick.” The former warlord sighed irritably. “I have guests to entertain.”
* * *
Eekrit and Eshreegar reached the great hall just ahead of Velsquee. The former warlord brandished his cane and snarled orders at the few slaves he had left, sending them scurrying to clear the worst of the rubbish out of the passageways before the Grey Lord arrived. While they worked, Eekrit had Eshreegar force open the one door to the hall that still hung on its hinges; the old skaven managed to shove it most of the way before the rotted wood tore free from its mountings and crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust and mould. After that, there was nothing left to do but stand by the dais and wait.
Minutes later, a company of storm-walkers came tramping up the passageway and filed into the hall. Velsquee was borne along in their wake, riding in a litter carried by eight exhausted-looking slaves. They passed between the ordered ranks of the heechigar and carefully lowered the chair to the floor, just a few feet from where Eekrit waited.
Velsquee rose from the padded seat with great care, his trembling paw leaning heavily on a rune-carved cypress cane. Eekrit reckoned that the Grey Lord was nearly two hundred years old now, his span of years extended by sorcerous means to well past that of a typical skaven. He could no longer bear the weight of weapons and armour, instead wrapping himself in layers of heavy, grey robes. His white fur had thinned around his paws and face, revealing the wrinkled skin beneath, and his ears hung listlessly against his skull. Grunting in discomfort, the Grey Lord found his feet and took a slow step forwards. Glowing charms of god-stone strung around his neck clinked softly together as Velsquee surveyed the mouldy, rotting tapestries and the pile of worm-eaten wood that had once been Eekrit’s expensive throne. When he spoke, his voice was a bubbling rasp. “How the mighty have fallen, eh, Eekrit?”
Eekrit’s tail lashed, stirring up more dust. “We wouldn’t want Nagash to think we still had a claim to the mountain, would we?”
The Grey Lord chuckled, breath wheezing past his lips. “Just so. Just so.” He raised a palsied paw to wipe at his mouth. “Have you any wine?”
Eekrit sighed. “Wine we have, my lord. Bowls, however, are in short supply. I have my slaves looking for some now. Forgive me, but we had no idea you were coming.”
Velsquee grunted. “No. Of course not. That was the entire point. No one knows I’m here.”
“Not even the Council?”
“Especially not them.” Velsquee took a few halting steps towards the two younger skaven. “As far as those idiots know, I’ve taken ill and retired to my sickbed.”
The news surprised Eekrit. The journey to the mountain from the Great City and back again took many months. Velsquee was risking a great deal; by feigning illness for so long, his rivals on the Council would think him easy pickings and begin manoeuvring against him. By the time he returned home, Velsquee might find his power base swept away and assassins lurking in every shadow.
“What in the Horned One’s name is going on?” Eekrit blurted.
Velsquee leaned with both paws upon his cane. “Your reports over the last few years have been very troubling,” he began.
“So you’ve read them, have you?” Eekrit snapped. “At what point did you first become concerned? Was it the mention of the legions of undead warriors Nagash has raised? Or perhaps it was the vast necromantic ritual the liche-king performed on the Night of the Horned God, some eleven years ago?”
Velsquee’s eyes narrowed. The heechigar filled the audience chamber with threatening growls, their paws tightening on the hafts of their polearms.
“Now is not the time for sarcasm,” the Grey Lord said.
Eekrit paused, drawing himself back from the brink. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said grudgingly.
“Good,” Velsquee said. He sighed. “You’ve stated in your reports that you no longer think we can defeat Nagash.”
Eekrit met the Grey Lord’s stare. “That’s right. He’s far stronger now than he was before the war and not just in the number of warriors at his command. His necromantic powers have increased as well.” He pointed a claw in the direction of the great cavern. “Did you see those skeletons? Did you feel the cold clinging to their bones? They’re much more potent than the ones we’ve faced before.” The former warlord shrugged. “He’s got too much god-stone in his vaults and he’s had time to improve his defences throughout the tunnels. Even with the full weight of the Under-Empire arrayed against him, I doubt we could prevail.”
The Grey Lord nodded. At length, he said, “I think you are right. In fact, I’ve suspected it for some time.”
Eekrit clenched his fist. Anger and frustration threatened to overwhelm him. He forced himself to speak as calmly as he could. “Then why are we still here? Why continue feeding him slaves and increasing his strength?”
“Because it allows us to maintain a presence near the centre of the liche-king’s power,” Velsquee said.
“To what end?”
The Grey Lord glanced at the nearest storm-walker and nodded, sending the heechigar striding swiftly from the chamber. “Ever since the end of the war, there have been troubling reports from the Seer Council,” Velsquee said. “Visions of darkness and death, spreading like a stain across the face of the world. They were vague things at first, but ever since the Horned God’s Night, the clarity and intensity of the visions have increased.”
Eekrit felt his hackles rise. “So Qweeqwol was right all along.”
The Grey Lord’s expression turned bleak. “Given the things I’ve heard recently, it’s possible that the mad old rat may have understated things quite a bit.”
Eekrit laughed helplessly. “Then what in the Horned One’s name do you think I can do about it?”
Velsquee did not answer at first. A few moments later, the storm-walker returned, labouring under the weight of a long, narrow case cradled in his powerful arms. He walked carefully across the chamber to stand beside the Grey Lord and set the case on the floor between him and Eekrit. Its surface was covered with intricate runes of protection; its lid bore thirteen elaborate magical seals.
The former warlord squinted at the case’s grey sides. “Is that made of lead?” he asked.
“It is,” Velsquee said grimly. “And sealed with potent sorceries to boot. Otherwise we would all be dead right now.”
Eekrit shrank back slightly from the container. “What’s inside?”
“A weapon,” the Grey Lord said simply, but there was a trace of awe in the old skaven’s voice. “A weapon more terrible than anything our people have made before. The finest warlock-engineers in the Under-Empire gave their lives to make it. I commissioned its forging in secret, just after the end of the war. It took nearly all my wealth and influence to see it finished.”
Eekrit stared at the case, feeling the first stirrings of greed at the power contained within. “Such expense,” he murmured, feeling the temptation to reach out and touch the enchanted lead.
Velsquee shrugged. “All the gold in the world doesn’t make much difference if you’re dead,” he said. He nodded at the case. “If any weapon in the world can destroy the liche-king, it’s this one. And I’m leaving it here with you.”
“Me?” Eekrit said. “Here?
Right under the-the liche-king’s nose?”
“Better here than the Great City, hundreds of leagues away,” Velsquee snapped. “Do you imagine that you could get close enough to Nagash to kill him at this point?”
The former warlord glanced sidelong at Eshreegar, who snorted in disdain.
“Of course not,” Eekrit said. “We’d get turned to ash—or worse—before we got within a mile of him.”
“I suspected as much,” Velsquee replied. “But the liche-king is marshalling all this power for a reason. Sooner or later, he’ll put it to use. His armies will march and great spells will be cast.”
Eshreegar folded his arms. “Providing us an opening,” the Master of Treacheries said.
Velsquee nodded. “And when the moment is right, you must strike.” He pointed to the case. “Among the many enchantments worked into the seals is a spell that will alert me and the Seer Council when the case is opened. When that happens, we will gather in the Great City and lend you all the aid we can. In the meantime, we will see to it that you receive the very best potions and amulets to maintain your health and vigour. We wouldn’t want you dying of heart failure before the task is complete.”
Suddenly the case didn’t seem nearly so attractive anymore. In fact, Eekrit felt a bit sick just looking at it. “How am I to know when the moment has arrived?” he protested.
The Grey Lord shook his head. “I have no idea. Not even the seers can say for certain.” He sighed and made his way slowly back to his litter. “Watch and wait, Eekrit, watch and wait. And one more thing.”
“What is that?”
Velsquee settled back onto his chair. “Remember Qweeqwol’s warning. Only someone who is dead himself has any hope of defeating the liche-king.”
At a gesture from the Grey Lord, the slaves lifted the litter onto their shoulders. Without a word of farewell, Velsquee turned about and departed the great hall, probably for the very last time. Stunned, Eekrit turned to Eshreegar.
“Oh, no. Don’t give me that look,” the Master of Treacheries protested.
“Why not? You’re the master assassin.”
“He didn’t say the job called for an assassin,” Eshreegar snarled. “Just some stupid bastard who’s already dead—and doesn’t know it.” He folded his arms irritably. “That could be either one of us.”
Try as he might, Eekrit couldn’t very well deny it.
—
Portents of Doom
Lahmia, the City of the Dawn, in the 107th year of Ptra the Glorious
(-1200 Imperial Reckoning)
Down in the temple quarter, the great prayer lamps had been lit for the first time in hundreds of years. From his perch atop the square roof of a nobleman’s residence close to the royal palace, Ushoran could hear the faint chanting of the priests and the frightened, almost pleading cries of the throng that filled the great square outside the decaying temples. Elsewhere, the great city was dark and still, even though the hour was early by Lahmian standards. He could remember a time when the market squares and the pleasure districts were noisy and bustling well past midnight, and richly-appointed palanquins would come and go at all hours between the houses on the city’s great hill and the gambling dens down near the docks. Now the houses were shuttered; the houses of pleasure had shut their doors. Even down in the harbour, the crews of the trading ships went below and barred the hatchways leading to the upper decks. Those citizens who weren’t begging for deliverance down in the temple quarter were huddled in the darkness, fearful of the terrible omen that stained the eastern sky.
No one could say for certain what it was. Certainly no one alive in Nehekhara had ever seen such a sight. It stretched like a streamer of glowing smoke across the heavens, a twin-tailed pennon of shifting, opalescent colour arcing high above the course of Neru and vengeful Sakhmet. The head of the pennon was rounder and brighter than the rest, shining with nearly the same intensity as Neru herself. It reminded Ushoran of a glowing catapult stone, like the orbs of bone that fell from the sky at Mahrak, so many centuries ago. He remembered the dread he felt, watching them hang suspended in the air over the battlefield, wondering when they would fall.
A palpable sense of doom hung over the city. Lahmia’s citizens were growing desperate; they’d been afraid for much too long, trapped within the walls of the city and watching friends and neighbours go missing, night after night. Ushoran’s agents warned him of angry murmurs in the market squares and the wine shops. People had lost faith in the king and the divinity of the royal bloodline. Offerings at the Temple of Blood had been dwindling for years, then dropped off altogether when the celestial portent appeared. The people of Lahmia were no longer looking to their rulers for succour, which was a very bad sign indeed.
It would only be a matter of time before Neferata noticed the lack of offerings at the temple. Edicts would be issued through the palace, demanding the worship of the people. Blood would flow, but it would be in the gutters of the city rather than the offering bowls of the temple.
At the moment, however, that was the very least of Ushoran’s problems.
The Lord of Masks crouched on the edge of the building’s high roof and launched himself into the air. The steep hill dropped away beneath him and for a dizzying instant he seemed to hang suspended in the warm night air. Ushoran’s lips drew back in a ghastly grin as he plunged earthwards, tasting the salt breeze as he fell towards the close-set roofs of the houses sixty feet below. He landed easily, broad feet splayed across the baked mud bricks, propelling himself forwards on all fours like a loping jungle ape and leaping skywards once more.
Rooftop to rooftop he went, from one quarter to the next, down the long slope and eastwards, towards the docks. The further he went, the more the city’s decline became apparent. The nobles’ quarter was still relatively clean and small groups of paid watchmen stood at the street corners to preserve the illusion of order. The neighbouring district, where the city’s wealthier tradesmen and ship owners lived, was filled with walled homes that had been turned into small fortresses over the years and were now showing signs of increasing decrepitude. More than once, Ushoran’s preternatural senses detected groups of night watchmen prowling the courtyards of the wealthier homes, or peering into the darkness from shadowed rooftops. None marked his swift and silent passage—or if they did, they huddled in fear and dared give no alarm, for fear of drawing attention to themselves.
Where the money ended, the city’s decline became sharply apparent. Past the tradesmen’s district were the modest, single-storey homes of Lahmia’s ship fitters and dockhands, which Ushoran had come to know well. Once, in the heyday of trade with the Silk Lands, the district had been bustling and well kept, if rough about the edges. Now it was dark and squalid. Piles of refuse rotted in the alleyways and behind the shuttered shops and the mud-brick walls of the homes were pitted and crumbling from neglect. Many of the families kept dogs in their courtyards and homes, to keep thieves—and packs of hungry rats—at bay. One began barking hysterically as Ushoran landed upon its master’s roof, prompting others to take up the cry as well. By the time he reached the far end of the district, the air was full of their harsh, yapping cries.
Further east, conditions grew steadily worse. Poor neighbourhoods where unskilled day labourers had once been able to live and eke out a meagre existence had become despair-ridden slums. Empty, crumbling homes presided over streets filled with puddles of liquid excrement that had seeped to the surface from blocked or broken sewer pipes. It was not uncommon to find corpses rolled into the filthy gutters, where they would fall prey to rats or packs of hungry dogs. The people living in the decrepit buildings were little better than animals themselves. For a while they had offered Ushoran some interesting sport, but he’d quickly tired of their dead eyes and scrawny, battered bodies.
Beyond the slums lay the sprawling merchant districts, markets and pleasure dens that were fed by the sea trade and catered to rich and poor alike. This was the true heart of the ancient city
, where the people of Lahmia made and lost their fortunes, celebrated victories or drowned their sorrows with wine, lotus or the pleasures of the flesh. During the glory days of Lamashizzar’s reign, when the city was the richest in the civilised world, the shops never closed and throngs of people from all over Nehekhara would ebb and flow through the streets in a human tide. No more; now most of the merchants and wine-sellers barred their doors at sunset and the dens of vice were frequented only by the wretched and the desperate.
Ushoran alighted upon the roof of a shuttered wine-seller and crouched there, listening intently. The murmur of the multitudes in the temple district and the chorus of barking dogs at his back blended together into a surf-like rumble of distant noise. The immortal closed his eyes, breathing deeply and tasting the air for a very particular scent. His head turned slowly left and right, searching for telltale sounds among the streets and alleyways between him and the docks.
He crouched that way for hours, arms wrapped around his knees, listening and tasting the scents of the furtive world around him. He heard the shuffling footsteps of beggars, the phlegmatic murmurs of drunkards and the tremulous invitations of street-corner whores. Once, he cocked his head at the sounds of a scuffle in a nearby alley. Fists pounded into flesh and a man grunted in pain. When Ushoran heard a pair of voices arguing over the man’s meagre possessions he settled back down with a scowl and continued his vigil.
Finally, well past midnight, came the sounds that he had been waiting for. Off to the south-east, perhaps four or five streets away, the strangled shout of a man, followed by the frantic, hysterical shrieks of a young woman. Then, moments later, Ushoran caught the coppery, acrid scent of fresh blood.
The immortal sprang into motion, leaping across alleys and rooftops in the direction of the screams. By the time the woman’s shrieks came to an abrupt end, Ushoran was only two streets away. The smell of spilled blood burned in his nostrils and set his cold flesh tingling. It drew him unerringly, like iron to a lodestone.
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