01 - Grey Seer

by C. L. Werner - (ebook by Undead)

  The grey seer’s eyes told him the feline horrors were real, his ears could hear their stealthy feet padding across the floor. But there was something wrong, something missing. The panthers carried no scent. Ghost or illusion, it was enough to decide Thanquol’s mind. He threw Kratch’s cringing form from him and lifted his staff high. “No-no fear-fright!” his scratchy voice bellowed, rippling with rage. “This is trick-lie! It is false-scent, nothing but shadow burned away by the light-wrath of the Horned One!”

  As he raged, Thanquol brought the butt of his staff crashing against the floor. The metal icon at its head blazed into brilliance, the white-hot explosion of a star. Creeping shadows were thrown back, ripped to shreds of blackness by the light. They slithered and wormed their way across the floor like living things, converging at the foot of the stairs. There they gathered, like frightened curs, about the feet of a sinister figure cloaked in grey. Thanquol blinked nervously as he met a pair of dark, stormy eyes that seemed to burn into his own.

  “Kill-kill!” the grey seer roared, jabbing a claw in the direction of the now-visible wizard. Even as he roared, however, Thanquol was flinging himself to the floor. Only the speed of the skaven’s instincts saved him as shadowy blades of sorcery swept through the air above him, skewering a warlock engineer that had been standing behind him. By burning away the shadow-shapes, Thanquol had exposed the real enemy, but in doing so he had made himself the target of choice for that enemy’s retaliation.

  The grey seer’s distress, however, was not noticed by the chittering horde of ratmen. With vengeful snarls, the skaven rushed for the lone wizard, their feral minds gripped by indignant fury. The terror of the cat-phantoms had touched upon their most primordial fears. That was an outrage even the lowest ratman would not forgive.

  The magister held his ground, hissing his contempt for the massed attack. His hand swept before him in an arcane gesture. The shadows gathered about his feet rushed forwards, crashing down about the ratmen like an icy wave. Instantly they were plunged into darkness, the brilliant glow of Thanquol’s magic cut off from them. Panicked by their blindness, the skaven began to cut and stab at one another, fearfully trying to fight off imagined attackers.

  It was only a momentary confusion, however. The skaven had other senses, sharper even than their sight. Soon, despite their fear, they would remember them and rise once more to the attack. The wizard was not going to give them that chance.

  “Up the stairs,” the magister ordered the two smugglers cowering against the wall as he drew a slender sword from his belt. As the wizard’s hand closed about the grip, crawling tendrils of blackness coiled from his fingers, rushing up the length of the blade, turning it from a thing of metal into a thing of shadow.

  Only for an instant did the wizard’s smoky eyes linger on the two criminals, then he was gone, merging into the darkness he had sent to engulf the ratkin. Sounds of battle rose from the blackness, the terrified screams of ratmen as their bodies were slashed by ensorcelled steel. Johann picked himself from the floor, risking a look at Kempf cowering nearby. The thief was huddled into a trembling ball, muttering to himself in a childlike voice over and again “the dreams are true”. Johann’s skin crawled just hearing the madman, his mind broken by the advent of the ratkin, horror heaped atop horror.

  Johann turned to race up the stairs, but the sounds of battle stayed him, stabbing at the core of his rough pride. He did not know why the sinister wizard had appeared to save them from the fangs of the underfolk. He did not know if his rescuer was mortal man or slinking night fiend, witch or sorcerer. All that mattered was that he was human enough to oppose the verminous ratkin. No man could abandon a fighter to such foes and still call himself a man.

  Tightening his grip on his knife, Johann prowled at the periphery of the roiling mass of darkness, stabbing and slashing those ratmen who emerged from the wall of shadow. For all their horror, for all the mythical dread they filled his mind with, the things bled when Johann cut them, filthy black blood that sizzled as it erupted from their wounds. Confused, disoriented by the change from darkness to light, the ratmen escaping the wall of shadow made poor opponents for all their inhuman quickness. Johann cut them down with butchering strokes that tore throats and gashed faces, as pitiless as Sigmar’s vengeance. Johann was remembering all the fright tales he had heard as a child, about the underfolk and their hideous habits, about their fondness for the soft flesh of babies and children. Such things were not deserving of mercy.

  Grey Seer Thanquol waited for the sounds of battle to reach him before rising from the floor. The priest-sorcerer ground his fangs together in a mix of fear and fury. It was outrageous that some miserable man-thing playing at magic should try to stand between him and ultimate glory! Thanquol would sweep the filthy warlock from his path like a flea from his backside! There was no chance the petty spells of a human could stand against the primordial might of skaven sorcery!

  Thanquol started to move towards the wall of shadow, the icon on his staff crackling with energy. Beyond that wall of darkness was the Wormstone, he could smell its sickly odour. He salivated at the thought of the awesomely powerful artefact in his paws, then reminded himself about the lethal consequences of handling it. A particularly high-pitched wail from one of the skaven fighting the wizard reminded him of the lethal consequences of entering that unnatural darkness as well. With all of his might and power, Thanquol knew there was only one thing to do.

  All around him, Thanquol was surrounded by ratmen who were less than eager to join their embattled kin warlock engineers, Clan Skaul lurkers, a few survivors of Thanquol’s contingent from Clan Moulder. The grey seer ignored all of these, his teeth gleaming in a savage grin as he spotted the skulking ratman he wanted.

  “Kratch,” Thanquol snarled, “fetch-steal the stone!”

  The apprentice cringed as he heard his master’s command. His mouth dropped open to squeak a protest, but the fire in Thanquol’s eyes made him close it again. Instead he snapped at some of the Clan Skryre ratmen around him. If he was going to risk his pelt bravely covering for his mentor’s cowardice, he was determined not to share the danger alone.

  Thanquol watched his apprentice scurry into the clinging darkness, flanked by several warlock engineers and Clan Skaul sneaks. With them they bore the huge iron box Viskitt Burnfang had prepared to convey the Wormstone safely.

  “Do you-you think-believe Kratch can get past-through the wizard-thing?” Burnfang’s voice growled in Thanquol’s ear.

  A petty tinge of amusement crawled into the grey seer’s voice. “If not, at least I am rid of him.”

  Then there was no more time for amusement. The wall of darkness collapsed suddenly, revealing a tangle of stabbing, clawing ratmen and their fallen brethren. Thanquol’s stomach turned as he saw the litter of bodies strewn around the fighting skaven. Confused by the darkness and the presence of an elusive enemy who weaved a path through their swarming ranks, the ratmen had turned their swords against whatever was close to them. They had done an excellent job butchering their comrades.

  It wasn’t the confused infighting and resulting carnage that disturbed Thanquol. He didn’t care a pellet for the dead and maimed warriors. What concerned him was the grim apparition their stupid frenzy had allowed to stalk right through their ranks. The grey seer felt a tremor of fear as he once again found himself locking eyes with the wizard’s stormy gaze. He reached for Burnfang to pull the warlock engineer in front of him, but the coward cravenly slipped away from Thanquol’s grasping paw.

  Fortunately, Burnfang’s underlings had stronger spleens. A few broke and scurried back into the sewer, but others raised a riotous array of heavy pistols, warplock weapons fitted with scopes and strange mechanised loading clips. The ratmen snarled their hate at their sinister foe.

  Thanquol managed to squeak a hurried “Fire-kill!” as the warlock engineers pulled the triggers of their weird weapons, allowing him to maintain an illusion of command. Thick black smoke billowed from the volley, b
ringing tears to the eyes of the ratmen. One warlock engineer shrieked as his overly complicated pistol exploded in his face. But the rest of the volley smashed into the grey-cloaked phantom, warpstone bullets capable of exploding steel plate slashing through the unarmoured wizard. Thanquol chittered in victory; nothing could survive such a point-blank assault.

  The grey seer’s laughter was drowned out by the shrieks and wails of skaven warriors. As the smoke cleared, Thanquol saw many of the clanrat fighters in the centre of the cellar topple and fall, writhing in pained heaps. The wizard stood, seemingly unharmed, glowering at the skaven shooters. Then, as though built of smoke himself, the motionless form of the magister disintegrated, shattering into shreds of darkness. An illusion! Another of the human’s insufferable tricks!

  Mocking laughter rose from the wall, once again wrapped in shadow and blackness. From that darkness, like a cave-shark rising from the pitch depths of a subterranean pool, the wizard stepped forwards, his icy blade held menacingly before him, warlock engineers squeaked in terror, fumbling and pawing at ammunition belts as they tried to reload their pistols. Those few with mechanical loading devices fired at the magister, but their shots were hurried and ill-aimed, the closest whizzing over the wizard’s hood.

  None of the Clan Skryre ratmen had a chance to recover. The wizard was among them, stabbing and slashing, spilling maimed skaven in whimpering heaps. Many of the ratmen broke, fleeing down the sewer, Viskitt Burnfang and Skrim Gnawtail leading the way.

  Abandoned, feeling the full measure of his predicament, Thanquol drew upon his magic for desperate and brutal salvation. Lightning crackled about the head of his staff as he used the metal icon to channel his sorcery. Snarling, Thanquol pointed the staff at the lone human slaughtering his minions. Searing green tendrils of malevolence burned and seared through the bodies of intervening ratmen, but the wizard himself faded from the magical assault, seeming to melt back into the clinging darkness. Thanquol ground his teeth, ripping at one of the ratskin scrolls at his belt.

  The spells he had bought, the power contained in the scrolls, would obliterate the annoying human! Thanquol tore the little rat-gut string sealing the rolled parchment, his lips already parted to begin squeaking the incantation. He stared in disbelief at the scratch-slash symbols that greeted his gaze. The scroll wasn’t the same one he had purchased! The snivelling black marketer had pulled a switch! Instead of a spell to draw magical energy from the aethyr and weave it into a ball of annihilating fire, what Thanquol was looking at was some kitchen-rat’s recipe for goblin goulash!

  A blast of gathered shadow smashed into Thanquol with the force of a hammer, throwing him to the ground. His staff leapt from his fingers, clattering against the floor. Little fingers of darkness wrapped about it, dragging it away from his grasping fingers. Frantic, Thanquol pulled a nugget of warpstone from beneath his robe, but before he could stuff it into his mouth, a stabbing knife of blackness tore it from his paw. Snarling in fearful rage, Thanquol lifted his eyes to see the grey-cloaked magister looming above him, his ensorcelled sword poised for a final, downward thrust.

  Thanquol cringed, bracing himself for an ignoble end. Then a cruel smile spread across his face. Just as the wizard loomed above the prone grey seer, a hulking shape loomed above the wizard.

  Thanquol’s chittering laughter scratched at the wizard’s ears in the same instant as Boneripper’s huge fist slammed into his body.

  Johann slashed at a final ratman, his big knife almost severing its spine. The mangled thing flopped to the floor, crawling in a pathetic pile to die in a corner. The numbers of ratmen breaking from the conflict raging amid the wizard’s veil of shadow had thinned. After an initial surge of three, they had continued in their ones and twos until Johann had accounted for eight of the vermin. The smuggler was breathing hard, sweat dripping from every pore, his arms feeling like numb lumps of lead hanging from his shoulders. He wondered if there was an inch of skin on his body that hadn’t been cut or scratched by the blades and claws of the ratkin. He was only thankful that none of their snapping fangs had managed to sink into the meat of his flesh.

  The smuggler hoped the wizard was holding his own, because Johann doubted he had the strength left to even muster the most feeble of assistance. Then again, for all he knew, the wizard could just snap his fingers and vanish any time he wanted, leaving Johann alone to face the vengeful horde.

  Alone save for a whimpering madman, Johann corrected himself. He turned his face to look at Kempf curled up against the wall. What he saw sent a thrill of horror down his spine. Five ratmen had gotten through the wall of shadow without his notice. The slinking vermin had circled around the conflict as best they could, intent not upon adding their numbers to the combat but upon some other purpose. Johann felt he knew what the monsters were after.

  “Ho! Monsters!” the smuggler shouted, forcing himself to lift his knife once more. Johann’s thoughts were of his brother, lying sick and dying in the bed of a whore. The one chance he had might lie in bringing some piece of the wyrdstone back to the priestess. Johann had been ready to kill Kempf, to risk certain death from Volk’s thugs, to secure the sample he needed. He would be damned if he was going to abandon his brother because of some slinking fairytale monsters!

  The ratmen spun about, snarling at the smuggler. One of them, a wiry creature with little stubby horns, cluttered a command to the others. Two of the ratkin drew long rusty swords and began to creep towards Johann. These weren’t confused, half-blind refugees fleeing from a fight. Johann could see their scorn for any threat he posed to them shining in their beady eyes. Their fangs gleamed in the weird green light, pink tongues licking hungrily at their furry snouts.

  Johann’s earlier combat against the ratkin had been butchery. This, he knew, would be a fight. A fight it was unlikely he would walk away from.

  Kratch snickered as he watched the foolish human try to stand its ground. The Clan Skaul sneaks would make short work of the stupid animal; unless of course they chose to take their time with it. He dismissed the killers and their quarry from his mind. He had bigger concerns to occupy him. Kratch turned and snapped commands to the two warlock engineers who had managed to keep up with the adept as he slipped through the veil of shadows. The two skaven scurried forwards, setting their heavy iron box down on the floor.

  Beside the box, glowing with the same eerie light he had seen before, the Wormstone seemed to welcome Kratch as he stretched his paw to seize it. The adept managed to resist the self-destructive urge. He knew exactly what the properties of the Wormstone were, and what it would do to any skaven stupid enough to touch it. It was a little detail he had kept from Skabritt, something he had tried to keep from Thanquol, though his new master had managed to discover it for himself through Burnfang’s experiments.

  “Take-fetch, quick-quick!” Kratch snarled at the warlock engineers. The masked ratmen stared at each other through their bug-eyed goggles, then back to the mass of darkness behind them. Their job had been to carry the box, another pair of engineers had been tasked with carrying the metal tongs to transfer the Wormstone into the box. They knew only too well the horrific effects of being exposed to the stone. “Quick-quick!” Kratch repeated, a greenish glow burning behind his eyes as the adept summoned his sorcerous powers.

  The display was enough to overcome the hesitancy of the engineers. Using their thick leather gauntlets and praying to the Horned Rat that it would be enough protection, the two ratmen converged on the Wormstone. With indecent haste, they seized the thing and dropped it into the waiting casket. One of the warlock engineers slammed the lid home while the other threw his tainted gloves away with a frightened squeak.

  Kratch patted the box affectionately. He looked back at the melee between the Clan Skaul lurkers and the human. The man was somehow holding them back, but Kratch could tell they would soon break through its fatigued defences. The apprentice wasn’t of a mind to wait for them to finish playing with the animal. He had bigger fleas to scratch.
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br />   “Back to the tunnel,” Kratch growled. The warlock engineers hefted the iron box from the floor, once again chittering little prayers to the Horned Rat that Burnfang’s precautions would actually work. They nearly dropped their heavy burden when the wall of shadows suddenly collapsed upon itself. Kratch leapt backwards, landing on all fours, his eyes wide with alarm. But when he saw the grey-cloaked figure confronting Thanquol beyond where the magical darkness had been, the apprentice’s lips pulled back in a predatory smile.

  “To the tunnel!” he repeated. Kratch let the warlock engineers lead the way, carefully picking a path through the crazed skaven warriors ripping and tearing at each other. There was a hideous instant when the warlock engineers who had remained with the grey seer fired at the human wizard, their bullets passing through the apparition to strike the ratmen beyond, but the shots were wide of Kratch and his crew. Besides, the follow-up to the wasted fusillade played right into the adept’s paws. His image broken, the wizard himself emerged from the darkness to confront Thanquol, slashing his way through the Clan Skryre shooters. Most of the skaven broke and ran, abandoning Thanquol to his enemy.

  Kratch seized the opening, urging his underlings down the tunnel. Kratch hurried after, dodging aside as the immense bulk of Boneripper charged up the passageway, rushing to his master’s aid. The rat ogre had been left behind in the sewer, the warlock engineers protesting that it would take too much explosive to widen the opening to allow the monster to enter the cellar. Reluctantly, Thanquol agreed to their incessant whining.

  Kratch ground his fangs together. The rat ogre smashed into the man-thing wizard just as the human was about to put an end to the thieving career of Thanquol! The brute tore his own opening into the cellar while his third hand formed a bludgeoning fist that smashed into the human and sent him flying across the basement. Kratch saw tentacles of shadow wrap about the cloaked figure, deadening the violence of his impact against the far wall as completely as one of Thratquee’s over-stuffed pillows. Kratch cursed as he saw Thanquol start to rise from the floor.